It’s not every day that Washington’s governor makes a visit to a client’s office. But that’s exactly what happened for Voxus client IID recently.
Governor Jay Inslee toured IID’s Tacoma headquarters before convening a special roundtable discussion at IID with approximately 20 high-level executives representing some of Western Washington’s and the nation’s most prominent businesses.
While most people consider core public relations as essentially keeping members of the press, thought leaders and the broader public well informed, it’s important to take a closer look at what politicians add to the conversation. Not only do they potentially open up new business opportunities within the government sector, but their public involvement with private business adds more legitimacy to a company. This involvement can be communicated in a variety of ways:
- Inviting press to cover the visit.
- Capturing video of a visit and distributing it via social media like YouTube and Vimeo. Because TV news outlets will sometimes leverage company-provided video when they are unable to be onsite, make sure you send video to these reporters as well.
- Taking photos of executives interacting with politicians and integrating these images into blog posts and an email campaign. Much like with video, consider distributing the pictures via social media like Facebook and Twitter. Just as broadcasters will leverage video if they are unable to make the event, print/online media outlets will use still images captured by companies—so send to them as well.
http://vimeo.com/99070672
In IID’s case, Voxus helped drive and execute all of these activities. Although we could slice and dice results using various statistics, from a high level, the outcome was a more positive company profile that extended beyond the Tacoma area. So the next time a politician wants to make a visit to your office, think long and hard about how you can leverage that visit publicly.