The importance of empathy in telling your story

PR can be summarized as telling your story to a target audience. Most people are satisfied with how they tell their story; however, an element many forget is empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. If you don’t consider the viewpoints of others, communicating with a group may not be effective.

There are numerous examples of PR failures when communicating with the public – United Airlines, Pepsi and Uber come to mind as PR disasters in 2017. If PR is telling a compelling story in an effective manner, consider who’s on the receiving end. That is empathy.

– James Bost, The Oklahoma 100