If you have the luxury of the option – choose to publish when there is a window in the public conversation / dialogue. With this, I mean that you might detect a momentum that you can use to ride on; be it a critical debate about industrial carbon footprint when you offer alternative materials, or be it a surge of violence among youths when your organization offers expertise counseling to professionals in youth work. It might seem cynical, and of course, out of context it probably would be. But we are in this because we believe that we – our company, our agency, our organization or our client – have something to offer that would help. And, as Robert Dilenschneider puts it in their “Public relations handbook”; Timing is key to any PR messaging.
Also, even in the midst of national tragedies, books need to be promoted, CEOs need to report to investors, and so on.
The ethical approach as I see it is to use the windows that are closely related to you to offer true and honest support and / or solutions. And if you don’t have that – either avoid publishing in such times, or try to connect to the audience’s state of mind with a message that taps into the events around you but in a context that you can stand by. Don’t overreach. If your company doesn’t offer any solution to the world-wide pandemic breaking out, don’t pretend that it does. Don’t play it too big – in the pandemic case, it might be enough, and just what the investors need to hear, that you have decided on a work-from-home policy. That you made the decision promptly when having enough intelligence to see where this might be going. And that you implemented that decision over the weekend. To safeguard your employers health, and to secure deliverance to your customers.
Rolling back to “avoid publishing in such times”. I know this is a tough nut for any PR-professional; since when you’re on the verge of publishing, you have been putting so much into this moment., And so many threads might come loose if you don’t push the Go-button now. But in some cases, you just have more to gain than to lose with a postponement. I know that a lot of times, you really can’t postpone, for different reasons (for example legal reasons, or other binding commitments), and you just have to live with the mitigating effects. But investigate your opportunities, and speak to your client or management team of the pros and cons. If you have strong enough arguments, they will listen.
Also – dry-periods are great for publishing. Often connected to holiday-times; around Christmas and in the middle of the summer, things have a tendency to slow down. Use those, reporters will be happy to get a good news story if their desks are more empty than they like them to be. Just consider staffing. You have to be able to handle the effects and aftermaths of the publication. A great PR activity does not end with a few articles on the subject, deriving from your release. A great PR-activity results in a number of questions, interview-requests and spokespersons-opportunity. And if you don’t have the resources to man up to this, postpone. You want the effect, not the “check in the box”. Also, if you’re unlucky, to not have the resources needed to answer follow-up questions in a good manner, you might actually see a backlash, with the opposite effect from what you intended.
Depending on where you are in the world, the news cycle differs over the different weekdays, and different days might mean different publication opportunities.
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