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What Freddie can teach us all
February 11, 2021
My late love, Freddie Mercury, once said “The reason we’re successful, darling? My overall charisma, of course!”
Successful people are often charismatic. Fortunately, it’s something that you can pick up along the way – or at least, try to. And I think success and charisma are particularly important partners in the world of PR. Some people say success in PR is based on who we know, but I’d argue it’s based on who we are.
The first thing clients expect from their PR person is to be understood and listened to. They want you to be as passionate about their work as they are. And at the moment, this must be evident despite the challenges of not being able to meet in-person.
In Covid-19 times, where we spend two to three hours on Zoom everyday – you want your clients to enjoy talking to you, and that the work you do as a team is fun and engaging. People have been exploring all sorts of ways of making an impact across a screen – as the limitations make it much harder than in real life. At the beginning of the pandemic, inserting luxurious backgrounds to their videos were popular with some. Last week, the BBC reported that a company that supplies books for TV and film sets has seen a rise in sales for home offices during lockdown. More and more professionals have ordered a shelf of books – and in certain cases, a whole library – to enhance the background of their Zoom calls.
But charisma does not depend on a background. So let’s look at the science. It points to the importance of a simple smile – according to a sociologist working at Bumble (and previously worked at Tinder), smiling makes you appear more attractive and confident. Bonus points if the person at the other end of the video smiles back, for then it will spur a chemical reaction in their brain, releasing dopamine and serotonin hormones. Their brain will connect seeing you, with feeling happy and calm.
Charisma can involve different attributes, but in a Zoom-focused world, it might just come down to a smile. If a smile makes people feel happy and calm, people will listen to each other and better work will be done. This is as essential in PR as any other line of work.
There are many elements to being a good PR person, but charisma is the icing on the cake. For clients to believe in PR, they need to believe in you.
Manon Durin