Maxim Behar: PR is Telling the Truth in a Way People Like

Often called a Modern PR Guru, Maxim Behar is one of the leading voices within the European communications industry. Serving as CEO and Chairman of M3 Communications (Bulgaria’s leading PR and Public Affairs company) as well as Chairman at Hill+Knowlton Strategy, Czech Republic, Mr. Behar is also a top social media evangelist, who often argues for the increasingly important role of social media strategy within the PR toolkit.

Mr. Behar was in India recently to speak at the ABCI Comfest 2012 in Mumbai, where Image Management served as the Digital Partners.

During our interview, he discusses amongst other topics, the impact of democratic social media dialogue on brands, the future of communications education, and the importance of PR conferences.

Host: You mentioned how communications have become global and how certain practices from one country can be used in another. But there is also the other extreme, where companies and brands should be wary of a one-size-fits-all approach. Because there are still differences in the market. So, how important is having local expertise?

Maxim: Local expertise was, for many years, the basis for public relations. But local knowledge is in detail. Generally, big companies, like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, use global creativity and localize it for advertising. Yet, in public relations, local practices are still most important because history and culture drive consumer behavior.

On the other hand, Facebook 2 weeks ago celebrated 1 billion people. Imagine 1 billion people at a shopping mall who share the same religion, culture, moods, and language; nowadays, some instruments can influence many people gathered in one place. If PR manages to accumulate global achievement and implement it in localities, it will mean success.

Local expertise in countries like India, China, and Japan and local knowledge are among the most critical assets. They’re all different in Europe and the US; in India, five centuries is ancient, but five years is old in the US. They are new markets.

Countries like India, China, and Japan have cultures and traditions. So local language and understanding is of high importance. Global experience should be remembered, and we should look at the experience of the most advanced countries in PR and communications, like the US and the UK, and throughout Europe.

Host: One of the things you mentioned is social media, which is fuelling this new world of connections. Social media is often called a democratiser because it gives people a voice when they didn’t have one before. But from a brand perspective, do brands want to partake in a truly democratic dialogue because it is where your brand can be praised?

Maxim: It also means that 50 years of a brand’s reputation could be negated or taken away in a single tweet.

They benefit. Absolutely. No doubt.

Social media is an excellent instrument to promote a brand and to put them into a democratic discussion about their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, whether brands of global or local companies like social media, it’s a reality, and they should change their policies towards the new conditions. One hundred years ago, people rode horses and carts. Suddenly, someone came with a car and said this is a unique, faster, and more convenient unit, so let’s move from horses to cars, But people said, ‘No, no, no, it uses gasoline. What happens if the gasoline runs out? What happens if the engine breaks? What happens if the whole thing blows up? Or the tires? And it’s hazardous as it can kill people.’ But at the end of the day, we all drive cars, not horses.

Of course, there are risks with social media, but it puts the brands in PR into completely new challenges compared to 10 years ago.
First of all, it’s very democratic and transparent — it’s based on transparency and knowledge.
All we do with social media is share knowledge.

In my brain, your brain, and your readers’ brains, there is now a thousand times more knowledge than ten years ago. I never expected that my brain could accumulate as much knowledge as it does now, and we, the people promoting brands, must be aware that people now know 1000 times more than they knew ten years ago.

That’s the main difference, the main challenge facing our business in the last 120 years. We all have this media; we have Facebook and Twitter — we should know how to manage this media. This is the biggest challenge. How to manage this?

First of all, we must know social media very well. Second of all, we must be aware, and we must be experts. We must know how to respond to a negative post and tell the truth so people like it. Because that is the new definition of PR that I have come up with: Public Relations is to tell the truth in a way that people like. We must tell the truth and have Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin because the world is transparent. So that’s why the risks are more for the brands, but so are the opportunities.

Host: So, another big challenge facing the PR industry in India is the talent crunch, where there is not enough talent. This can partly be blamed on the education system producing communications graduates in this country and that they’re not given enough experience to enter the industry. I know that M3 also runs a very successful communications school in Bulgaria, so from that perspective, what do you think communications or PR colleges need to do to make students industry-ready for how PR is today?

Maxim: From my understanding, the future of PR education will be based online because, yes, even though I’m the chairman of the college, the only one licensed adequately in Bulgaria, the knowledge that students have with social media today is much better and much more than a college can provide. Because a college has two functions. One is to educate people about social media, and the other is to show them where to find the correct information.

Of course, our teachers and professors share a lot of knowledge and case studies, but at the end of the day, all those things might be found on the Internet and social media. So, the education system must create good abilities in the students to find the proper information. Fifteen years ago, whatever the professor said in the room was knowledge. Or the professor could show you a couple of good books to read. But of course, there weren’t many books written on how to be a successful PR because it was top secret. Now, there are no secrets. Even if I must describe the modern world in 3 words, I would say: No secrets world. There are no secrets, but we need to learn to find the information we need quickly. So the college, in Europe, India, Japan, anywhere, should be able to teach the students how to find those secrets which they need to see. And if they learn this, they will be outstanding professionals quickly.

Host: With so much substantial experience in PR, what would it be if you could give one piece of advice to a 21–22-year-old just entering the industry for the first time?

Maxim: If he/she would like to learn how to swim, I would tell them to immediately jump into the deep end, into the ocean, not to go to the indoor swimming pool with the coaches, because going into social media and trying to do business and learn case studies, that’s the deep ocean. Still, on the other hand, the people must be very well prepared in advance because preparation is crucial for our business.

One mistake can cost you your lifetime career. One mistake can damage your client’s brand. One mistake can devastate your business.
That’s why you should be well prepared, and honestly, if it’s a new person, I would advise them to use one of the laws which I have followed my whole life: that’s the Three S law, Speed, Simplicity, Self-confidence.

Because speed is crucial in the modern world, in my office in Sofia, it is the 5-minute law, and each employee must answer an email within 5 minutes after they see it. Even if I say ‘thank you for your mail, I will answer in one month’ or so. But within 5 minutes, you must register the receipt. This is the speed. Also, in the past, if our client had a crisis and a wrong article was written in the newspaper, we had 8 hours to react before the next issue. You go to the client, you sit down, you prepare a press release, you discuss, then you edit, then you send the press release to the media, then the media comes back to you with questions, so it’s a full day, and in it, you manage a crisis. Nowadays, you don’t even have 8 minutes. Or 8 seconds. It requires high speed and preparation on how to react and what to say.

Simplicity: we must make our world simple. Because it’s so sophisticated and complicated, we know all sides; we go to one website in the morning and the same one in the evening, and it has different information and different points of view because the world is changing every minute. So we must make our lives simple. That is the second S. We must have priorities. To defend our client’s brand is a priority; the priority is not to put every 5 minutes a tweet about our client. You can do this, too, but that’s not the priority. Our priority is to defend the image, be proactive, not be defensive, understand our client’s product and the base of its image, and follow very carefully what the social media is saying about the client’s image.

And number 3, Self-Confidence. We cannot do anything without self-confidence. If we stay in a small room, looking at Facebook and Twitter, and having no trust that we might be the leaders of the image of the brand of our client, then we cannot do anything; we cannot win. Self-confidence is based on our knowledge. It is based on our reaction. It’s based on our ability to manage the media and express ourselves in a good way, and it’s also based on our trust that we are the leaders.

So: Speed, Simplicity and Self-Confidence.

Host: Finally, you’re here for the ABCI conference. I mentioned earlier that we’re having our PR festival next month. So, what do you see as the importance of events such as these for the PR industry, and do you think they’re doing enough?

Maxim: Meeting different cultures, different experiences, and points of view in one room is significant in the digital world because in the digital world daily, we meet 100 new people. We don’t know what they look like, and we discuss different things every day. And by the way, in the digital world, we may say things that we would never say in the real world because that’s the nature of this media.

And another thing, you speak one language, but we don’t realize that we talk to English in entirely different ways in different media. How we write SMS and report on Facebook completely differs from how we write on Twitter.

In entirely different ways, we make other English languages, and now, potentially, the only natural language we use is when we meet in person. Because we have our body language and tone, and you know, in human communications, 93% is body language and tone, 7% the words. Nothing else. That’s the significant advantage of this media because when we speak on social media, we may exchange millions of words of information. Still, it is only words; we don’t have tone, body language or eyes, smiles, expressions, faces, gestures, everything.

And that is the future of PR. Because if we don’t know this type of communication, we don’t understand PR. So I hope your PR festival succeeds; Holmes reports events to follow, as do PR events worldwide.

Interviewed by Kunal Pal

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