Fake it until you make it? Not anymore!

In PR classes at Northern we hear time and time again how ‘perception is reality.’ When I hear this phrase, I often think back to the 1997 film Wag the Dog. The movie is about a D.C. spin doctor who created a fake U.S. war with Albania in order to distract the public from the president’s sex scandal just days before the presidential election. The public perceived the fake war to be reality, which successfully contributed to the re-election of the president.

According to Chapter 17 of Share This, creating a Wag the Dog situation in PR world is practically impossible in today’s digital society. ‘Perception is reality’ has become ‘reality is perception’ due to the evolution of real-time PR over the Web.

What exactly does this mean? The growth of social media has made it much more difficult for businesses to fake it. Organizations can no longer project a false image, because it will eventually be revealed online. With stockholders, consumers, employees and various other publics participating in real-time online conversations, transparency is more critical than ever before.

Consider Wag the Dog: had a crazy scenario like this taken place in today’s digital world, we would have conspiracy theorists and news busters all over social media debunking the fake war and sharing the conspiracies with their friends. With a quick Google or Facebook search we could connect to people in Albania and uncover the truth.

“In other words, PR can only be authentic – defined as having the quality of an emotionally appropriate, significant purpose and responsible mode of human life” (pg. 151).

According to Philip Sheldrake, there are five essential pieces to creating real-time PR success:

1.     Connecting (or reconnecting) PR to the business

2.     Updating, developing and investing in the organization’s knowledge, skills and policies

3.     Defining the analytics and workflow of your real-time interactions and conversations

4.     Creating an appropriate company culture

5.     Being rigorous in the measurement and evaluation of real-time PR

If a business wants to be perceived as a great organization they have to be committed to honest and transparent real-time communication.  Businesses that try to fake it will not be able to maintain a positive image for long, especially in a society where our digital conversations are moving from weekly, daily and hourly to minute-by-minute.