I work in crisis PR. That doesn't mean all my clients are in crisis.

I'm known predominantly for crisis PR. It's a large part of my work, it's what I'm regularly asked to comment on in the media and it's the reason plenty of people find me. But it doesn't mean everybody I represent is in trouble. I also work with businesses, founders and public figures on proactive PR and media relations, whether that's securing interviews, building a profile, launching something new, establishing credibility or simply making sure the right people know who they are and what they do.

I've never really considered the two to be completely separate disciplines. Ultimately, most PR is reputation management in one form or another. Sometimes you're building a reputation, sometimes you're maintaining or changing one, and sometimes you're protecting one when the stakes suddenly become much higher. Crisis PR happens to be the area I particularly specialise in, but the way I think about reputation applies just as much when everything is going well.

Good PR isn't about getting your name everywhere

One thing working in crisis has probably made me more cautious about is publicity for publicity's sake. There's an old saying that all publicity is good publicity, which I don't particularly agree with. If I'm going to put somebody into the public domain, I want to understand why we're doing it and what we want that coverage to achieve. We might be establishing credibility, reaching a particular audience, supporting a business objective, changing an existing perception or building a body of credible information around somebody's name. All of those are good reasons to pursue press.

What I don't think is particularly useful is deciding that somebody needs to appear in the media simply because they haven't appeared anywhere that month. I've worked with very well-known people who have quiet periods. That's normal. Nobody has an endlessly interesting story to tell every four weeks, and there is a point at which continually manufacturing reasons to appear in the press becomes counterproductive. Overexposure is real, both audiences and journalists can become tired of seeing somebody who doesn't have very much new to say.

That's why I don't work on the basis of promising clients a fixed number of pieces of coverage every month. I could put five articles a month into a proposal and it might make the service sound reassuringly measurable, but I can't force five credible independent journalists to write about somebody. Nobody can. If there genuinely isn't a worthwhile story that month, I'd rather say that than manufacture something meaningless simply so I can add another link to a report.

My crisis work affects how I approach PR

A considerable part of my working life is spent dealing directly with journalists, editors, producers and broadcasters. Sometimes I'm pitching a completely positive story about a client. Sometimes a journalist is approaching me because they want to interview somebody I represent. Sometimes I'm dealing with a much more difficult situation and trying to establish exactly what is going to be published, when it's going to appear and what my client needs to do about it. I'm also regularly approached by journalists myself for commentary on reputation, crisis communications and stories involving public figures.

Spending that much time dealing with the press gives you a useful understanding of how journalism actually works. You learn what makes a genuinely good story, what gets ignored, how journalists research people, what makes somebody useful enough to come back to and why having a relationship with a journalist doesn't mean you can simply phone them and demand coverage. Those relationships are obviously useful when I'm working proactively with clients, but the understanding behind them is probably more important.

My crisis work also means I'm usually thinking a few steps beyond whether I can get something published. Before putting somebody into the public domain, I'm thinking about the likely headline, which quote might be pulled out, how the story fits with everything else they've said publicly and what it could look like if somebody finds it without any of the original context in a few years' time. Getting the coverage is only one part of the job. I also have to think about what that coverage does to the reputation we're trying to build.

PR doesn't end when an article is published

This has become particularly important because press coverage now has a much longer life than the original news cycle. An interview might be published today and remain prominently associated with somebody's name on Google for years. It might be found by another journalist researching them, a potential employer, investor or customer, or somebody who simply wants to know more about them.

Increasingly, the same information can also influence what AI systems understand and repeat about a person or business. That's why I spend a lot of time working with Google, search results and the wider online footprint around my clients as well as traditional media. Press, search, social media and AI aren't neat, separate disciplines anymore. They feed into one another, and together they create the picture somebody sees when they research you.

This is also why I think proactive PR can be useful even for somebody who has no particular desire to become famous. A strong public profile doesn't necessarily mean being everywhere. It can simply mean there is enough credible, accurate information about you in the public domain that somebody searching your name gets a fair understanding of who you are and what you do.

Sometimes the best PR decision is not to pitch

There are occasions when I'll tell a client that I don't think we should do anything that month. That might be because the story isn't strong enough, because we've already had significant exposure recently, because there's a much better opportunity coming or simply because I can't see how another piece of coverage helps the objective we've agreed on.

That doesn't mean good PR is passive. A large part of the job is finding opportunities, creating angles, understanding the news cycle and identifying conversations a client can credibly contribute to. But there's a difference between creating a good opportunity and forcing a bad one. I'd rather spend a quieter month developing something genuinely worthwhile than put somebody into the press for no reason other than being able to say that I did.

PR should also change depending on what we're trying to achieve. Sometimes a national newspaper interview is exactly right. At other times, the audience we actually care about might be listening to a particular podcast, following certain people on social media or reading a very specific trade publication. The objective should determine the channel, rather than starting with “we need press” and working backwards.

Building a reputation is easier than repairing one

Working in crisis PR has also given me a fairly unusual perspective on what happens when somebody hasn't thought about their public reputation until something goes wrong. If somebody has spent years building credible coverage, establishing their expertise and creating an accurate online presence, one negative article exists within a much wider body of information about them. If somebody has almost no public footprint and the first significant result attached to their name is negative, that story can very quickly become their entire online identity.

I'm not suggesting everybody needs to embark on a huge PR campaign in preparation for a hypothetical future crisis. Most people don't. But there is an obvious advantage to thinking about what you want to be known for before somebody else gets an opportunity to define it for you. It's considerably easier to build a reputation when things are going well than to start creating one from scratch when you're already under scrutiny.

That's ultimately why I don't see proactive PR, reputation management and crisis communications as three completely separate things. They're different stages of the same work. I might be helping somebody establish their reputation, making sure it continues to reflect where they are now, protecting it during a difficult period or rebuilding it afterwards.

So, do I only work with clients in crisis?

No. I work with businesses, founders and public figures on interviews, profiles, launches, thought leadership, television, radio, podcasts and wider media relations. Some clients want to become better known, some want to be known for something different, and some simply want somebody experienced looking after their public profile and reputation.

Of course, sometimes somebody calls me because everything has gone spectacularly wrong. That's the part of PR I'm particularly known for, and it's work I know extremely well. But it isn't a prerequisite for working with me.

So if you're a journalist and I've emailed you about somebody I represent, you don't need to immediately start searching their name to find out what they've done.

I might just be doing their PR.