How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

"The pen is mightier than the sword" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The quote signifies the importance of journalism and media in the 21st century. Media can cause companies to shut down. It can also help transfer minnows into giants. It can affect the decision of a customer who is going to choose a product from all the options available to him or her.

Media can even change a voter's mind and hence can affect the world politics.

Media is basically a medium of communicating. It can be in the form of news in newspaper, on radio, televisions or internet. Media also includes social networking sites which involve participation of all the members. Celebrities and top executives of multinationals have their blogs which they use officially or unofficially to interact with the world in order to keep their fans and followers aware of the truth and away from rumors about them. As far as work place is concerned various media is used to communicate globally spread businesses and to reduce the geographical distance. External media can also affect a firm by helping the firm gain or lose employees and customers.

Nike was severely criticized in media due to the sweat shops it partners ran in Asia and eventually it faced a boycott by many loyal customer.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

In the 21st century, media has become very powerful. It is the medium through which we get to know the happenings of the world. Media can remove the curtains to show the world the truth. Also media brings front the injustice done to people. Every company has to have positive relations with the media in oder to market there brand name , image and reputation. Media plays a big role in bringing new customers and retaining the old ones. New releases and new products can be marketed very well to the customers if the company has good relations with the media. Media can be of many type, television and radio where in existence since long but now social networking (  facebook and twitter) are becoming as important as others. 

Well I worked for Met life for a while and we used both the newspaper and television media for advertising both our existing and new products. Nowadays we have created a Facebook page and have more than 12000 members joined to it.  

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How do you see Media Relations used in your work environment?

There are countless examples of businesses getting widely discussed in the media. From the very bad; the decision to cut health care for employees or a class action discrimination lawsuit being filed, to the very good; charitable contributions or building a community center in an inner city neighborhood, actions are going to be discussed on much more than a local level. Regardless of what an organization does, it will have ramifications in the media. That is why it is essential to have good media relations. PNC Bank makes use of all forms of media. For example, when National City was consolidated with PNC, many consumers were concerned. National City customers were worried that programs and accounts that they had been using for years would no longer be accessible at PNC and they feared that they would simply be expected to open new accounts. PNC made sure to get the word out via various media sources that this would not be the case. This was also apparent during the banking bailout when PNC was able to inform its customers that they did not receive any bailout money nor did they ask for any. It is important to be able to get information out as quickly as possible and if you have a good relationship with the media, you can help assure that this happens.

The importance of Media Relationship in Department Store

Media play an important role in business, especially in service industry. Service industry use media, such as internet, newspaper, and TV, to spread all information about their service quality and activities to customers. When I worked in department store, SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI, media was an important tool which could let our customers know when we have discount and what kind of discount they have. Most of customers get our promotion information from Newspapers and internet, and then they will come to visit department store because of our promotion.
Actually, building relationship with media is not very easy. There is too much complex factors effect media environment. For example, before having special activities, we need to invite the reporters to know our activities and we have to let them feel this activity is special. They will report your activities and directly impact customers’ impression. That’s the reason why the service industry always spends much time and money building good relationship with mass media.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

As my experiences, I see Chili’s doing good job and effort to establish media strategy and promote themselves. They know how to combine the most popular internet programs together. They put the link—facebook, twitters, youtube…etc on the official website and let people share links to friends. They are really wise to collect fans.

If you notice the right side under corner of the website, you would found they even have their own “Chili’s Radio”. As Chili’s fan, I’d happy to listen the radio when I get online. Actually, I was listening to the radio when I was typing this blog.

As you can see, they have already have 480,548 fans in chili’s facebook, almost 1,1000 twitter followers. Chili’s reply peoples’ common very often or announce the latest promotion in time. These are good platforms for fans and chili’s managers to multicommunicate with each other.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

Media is like supervisors that responsible to communicate information between companies and people. In other words, when a corporation announces some information, not only good news but also bad one, to media and then media disseminate news to people. I could give an example for the relationship between media and companies. If an organization is devoted to philanthropies, the news will be report by media, such as newspapers, magazinges, even internet. Consequently, people will give positive appreciation of the organization. On the contrary, when a company does some illegal acts and affect its image, it will also be proclaim through media and bring negative effect to the company. In sum, media could be companies' friends, but they also could be companies' enemies that just be decided by what the companies do and impact to the society, better or worse. Therefore, organizations should attempt to develop relationships with media because it has huge influence for organizations.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility is gaining more importance than ever before in the corporate world. The main reason being that the people are becoming aware and conscious about the conditions of people in other countries due to globalization. Today the common man is much concerned about how the products bought by him are produced. He also sees firms that contribute something to the society as the good guys. The term "Greed is good" is seen as the words spoken by the bad guys.

Corporate responsibility is taken seriously by all the corporations today. Every firms tries its best to benefit the society by donations, purchasing policies that involves buying products that are involved with inhuman practices, making schools and hospitals. Some companies are adopting practices to help the environment.

Sometimes the top management may face critical situations where the profits of the companies have to be sacrificed for the sake of corporate responsibility. If they chose not to cut profits and continue their traditional practices they may face protests from activists, media and common man and eventually their products could face a mass boycott.

Hence corporate responsibility may seem like a loss in near time, it will eventually help building the reputation of the firm and help the firm in the long run.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Each company has its own set of core values, but the company’s values also touch everyone that the business deals with. Early, a company’s corporate responsibility was dictated by its government. There were set laws that had to be adhered to regarding financial and social responsibility, wherein today companies have realized the importance of CR and they know how customers and other socio groups  are keeping an eye on them. In its most basic terms, corporate responsibility can come down to the ethics of a business . Companies have to take in account the environment and the surroundings in which they do business.

A prime example of corporate responsibility is the situation that happened recently in the Gulf of Mexico with the British Petroleum oil spill. Whether or not the response was up to the task of the natural disaster is subjective but there is no doubt that BP undertook an extensive public relations campaign in an effort to demonstrate corporate responsibility.I do not think the general public would tolerate a global corporation not paying for and diligently fixing any kind of problems they have caused.

         

 Whats BP socio responsibilty?

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility is not a new issue, however, it has become increasingly evident in today's marketplace. You see many different companies touting their sustainability or environmentally friendly policies. This is a testament to the changing values of our society, smart businesses are making changes that are popular with the community at large. The best example I can give personally is when I worked for PNC Bank. PNC has an enormous environmental program dedicated to going green. Dozens of PNC branches have been converted into green buildings, in fact, PNC has more green buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council than any other company worldwide. These branches reduce wastefulness by using power saving features, recycled products, etc. They have even copyrighted the term Green Branch. This is just one of the aspects of their CR programs, others include the Grow Up Great program, the PNC Foundation, and many others. These programs have firmly cemented PNC in the communities in which they are located. Customers know that PNC is dedicated to their community and this is often listed as a reason for why they choose to bank with PNC.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility has deep connection with corporate reputation. For instant, few months ago, because of industrial development, Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) had brought some environmental pollution. The most important, it also decreased local living quality and caused residents' health problem. Due to this event, FPCC's reputation influenced result from it lack of corporate responsibility. In other words, FPCC didn't be a good model of society to people. In my opinion, I consider that if FPCC could not only focus on its development, but also prevent environmental pollution, it will improve corporate reputation and increase its empolyees' loyalty. In sum, a better corporate responsibility strategy not only could earn more profit to company, but also, the more important, it could attract more and more customers and retain excellent empolyees in company.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation?

The essential role employees play as brand ambassador for corporation. Foxconn is subsidiary company of Hon Hai. The news in this spring, it showed that Foxconn’s employees suicide in its dorm in China. Some medium reported that Foxconn didn’t have good welfare of personnel and that its employees always work overtime. Because of those reports in Asia, Foxconn’s stock price falls next day and some customers had bad image with this company. Moreover, Foxconn is the OEM of Apple Corporation. Apple required Foxconn provide its salary statement and the welfare of Foxconn.
Hon Hai’s president, Terry Gou, tried to fix its company’s reputation. He gave his employees better salaries and provided them more promotional opportunities. These events impacted Foxconn to respect for the corporation responsibility and improve its welfare of personnel. Also, Foxconn adjusted some policies in company to balance its employees and managers relationship for building better reputation in the OEM industry.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate Responsibility is not only to increase corporate profit but to build trust with products quality and customer service. I got some experiences when I worked in Chili’s grill and bar restaurant.

First of all, the HACCP is the most basic standard for all the restaurants that is to insure the food quality if above the standard of safety and sanitary. People now much emphasize the healthy food and care about the ingredients of the food. Chili’s menu always shows calories aside the dish names, listing ingredients below and provide diet menu which with lower calories and fat. Besides, Chili’s training their employees to remind customer the food with milk, egg or seafood might get allergic for preventing from it happen. This behavior helps them to enhance the service quality.

In addition, food waste has been one of the biggest issues for food industry. Chiefs cut down unwanted part and that would otherwise been thrown away. Or restaurants getting too much food materials in stock thus can’t completely consume them. Chili’s also have the same problem but they find a way to solve. For example, Chili’s provide employees free meal. The meal comes with some materials like corn which used to be sides of steak. It’s really a good approach to consume these extra foods and reduce cost.

More and more investors are now evaluating CSR in deciding what companies get their money. Chili’s excel in CSR, bring investors and customers both positive impression and reputations of its restaurant. They gain more profit and let investors willing to put their money in the company from the positive reputation and CSR.