BOOK TITLE: EFFECTIVE PERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS
AUTHOR: ANDY GREEN
PUBLISHER: KOGAN PAGE, LONDON
NO OF PAGES: 219
REVIEWER: NZE EUNICE
The book, Effective Personal Communication Skills for Public Relations analyses how to transform your communication by managing the way you think, act, create message and network.
It also offers practical advice and guidance to understanding new trends and challenges facing communicators, particularly in the use of word-of-mouth networking and branding.
In chapter one, the author explains that how one thinks fundamentally shapes what they say, hear or do. The mind is a unique mental map, different from anyone else’s, shaped by personal beliefs, values and attitudes. Whatever you say or do will be interpreted by different people in different ways. Your communication skills are determined by your level of intellectual and emotional intelligence. Thinking you are a great communicator is the first stage to being one, Green states in his book.
The second chapter notes that the quality and depth of your abilities, coupled with your ability to secure the optimum balance between them, marks your brand of thinking. Your communication quotient is relative to your analytical, emotional, visioning and adversity quotients. At different times, successful communicators call up different facets and qualities of their personality to overcome obstacles to their communication.
In the third and fourth chapters the author states that you do not communicate integrity and trust with words. There are a range of languages to convey your messages and so, your ears must be your best friend. He also describes memes as the currency for exchanging ideas. You can also discover how you can secure significant advantage in your communication by being flexible in your thinking. All the ideas are contained in three dimensional boxes called paramemes.
Andy Green posits in chapter five that the message is the medium. You will need to shape your messages to make them meme and brand friendly. The power of icons in your messages should also be harnessed to make them distinctive and memorable. When you communicate and listen within the structure of a brand, values and beliefs, you will need to have clear positioning in your messages, which the author says must be short.
Chapter six explains how to make things happen. You can achieve this by listening, building commonality with your target audience, exploiting benefits, key messages, communicating with flair and flourish, and tailoring your communication as much as possible to the target.
The author stresses that word-of-mouth (WOM) is the most potent form of communication in chapter seven. This is so because it is coming from trusted sources and has ability to replicate like wild fire. He also discussed online communication as a means of transforming your ability to communicate quickly and with many different people to build a critical mass speedily. He however advised that communicators and public relations professionals should act quickly and take to WOM, because it is going to be one of the biggest growth areas in marketing.
In the eighth chapter, the author discussed the network of contacts. We all have a variety of network contacts and not everyone is equal on the network or other groups you seek to communicate with. Identify key people and create a tipping point effect, a tidal wave of communication.
In chapter nine, the author stresses that networking is not just about who you know, but whom the people you are networking with know. Successful networking is not about selling but is based on the philosophy of achieving mutual win-win goals. Networking can be targeted and managed to leverage greater results. Everyone around you provides a networking opportunity.
Chapter ten talks about the context in which you present your information as this determines its value and significance. The successful communicator seeks win-win solutions and sets targets to make half step moves to change their behavior. Sharing a birthday with someone odious can make you change your attitude toward them, the author points out.
The concluding chapter of Andy Green’s book seeks to bring all the different communication elements together by contrasting the experience of two young men separated by 2,000 years: the creator of the love bug internet virus and Jesus Christ. The concept of personal brandcasting brings together all the elements where you harness your own personal branding and communication skills to create meme friendly messages, using your networks to generate buzz around the message which in turn can engage the mass media to cover the story and sustain the dynamism of communication.
The author makes use of exercises, checklists, examples and practical tips to help formulate a winning communications strategy. Professionals in the PR field and scholars will find this book useful.
