media update’s Aisling McCarthy chatted to Welman about the lessons they have learned in the company’s first year.

ByDesign Communications has had a successful first year, winning a SABRE Award for the Best Newcomer PR Consultancy. What do you think makes a PR company a success? How do you achieve that?

I always think success is a combination of many things; meticulous planning, your abilities and value offering, your network, and a bit of luck.

Starting any company has risks but knowing what you do and how – but probably more importantly, what you don’t do is critical. As ByDesign, we’ve entered into great partnerships and grown alongside partners.

What kind of challenges have you faced in the process of growing your business? How did you overcome these?

When starting a business, challenges are great and frequent – in our case, we had distinct responsibilities set between the two founding members, so as we solved problems, we always had someone focusing on building the business.

You can never take your eye off growth, otherwise, you’ll stagnate.

Vanessa Baard has mentioned that with the ushering in of fake news, reputational value exceeds authentic brand value. Why do you think this is? What can you do to ensure your business’s reputation is good?

Simply put, reputation is what others say about you. Reputations are built over years of delivering on your promises – every action, every day, builds – or breaks– a reputation.

Reputations have never been challenged more than right now, in the era of ‘fake news’, which has been made worse by the continued increase in the use of social media and the perceived importance of it.

Even our global cornerstone media houses like CNN are openly being called out for ‘perceived skewed news agendas’ and delivering fake news to their audiences. People, more than ever, are challenging the authenticity of news.

You mentioned that fake news has been made worse by the continued increase in the use of social media. Please explain what you mean by this?

Social media has given everyone a voice – the ‘sexiest’ content gets the biggest audience. Content is not vetted or structured, but the audience still expects the news to be accurate. Who is responsible for authenticating news, or all content, for that matter?

Unfortunately, people set up their social networks to reflect their own views – a Democrat (in the US) is unlikely to follow Republican thought leaders – so people listen to / read opinions that reflect their own. People do this to reinforce and validate their own views.

What advice would you give to PR consultancies currently in their infancy? What is your recipe for success?

Be bold enough to make promises, be competent enough to keep them. In this industry, you live and die by your reputation.

Make the phone call, set the meeting, and go and see the potential client, show them what you have to offer… and then deliver.

For more information, visit bydesigncommunications.co.za

The public relations industry can be tricky, but certain tools, like media monitoring, are making it easier to navigate. Read more in our article, Four reasons why media monitoring is critical in PR.