Danger of replacing pr with publicity

The public engagement of the government in the past week has been disastrous to say the least. Governing by PR and hashtags government are some of the labels given to the Jubilee government by the public. If the feedback we have seen in the media and online is anything to go by Kenyans are angry with the government and I believe it is for a good reason. The outrage among Kenyans is evident

The outrage among Kenyans is evident When I thought that the necessary thing would have been to empathize with the citizens, the government seemed to blame them. When I thought they should listen, the government seemed to justify its perceived failures. When it came to seeking the citizenry support to deal with the challenges of security the government demanded it instead of requesting.

It was so obvious something was wrong with the government’s public engagement policy. To add salt to injury when the public criticized the President and his PR team they hit back with a justification. There are many lessons to learn on public engagement. The most important lesson is that listening is golden for any organisation more so during a crisis or when you are criticized. It helps you win over people. The second lesson is when you are serving people,

your stakeholders are king. Even when you have done the best and they don’t like it don’t push it down their throats. In such instances go back to lesson number one and listen to what they are saying and look for ways to serve their needs, in any case they pay your bills. Thirdly in the PR world we learn that the most important thing isn’t what is being said, but how it is said and when it is said. A practical example is the “Security starts with me and you.” Whereas it is a good campaign I personally believe the President is the wrong person to be its face. You see there is no way you can equate the role a President plays to that of a mwananchi. For starters the President is the Commander in chief and secondly he is highly protected. Showing how a tip shared by the public helps arrest an offender will send the message more clearly and will be more acceptable. Government must learn to listen

The outrage among Kenyans is evident

The last lesson I get is that we need to differentiate between publicity and PR. PR is about creating understanding while publicity is seeking to be known. Whereas both have the ultimate goal of winning people over, PR makes people feel listened to and appreciated and ultimately they own the process. Publicity on the other hand takes the route of showing off to win people over. I may be wrong but I think the government is doing more publicity instead of PR!