RE.View Webinar sum-up: the most important takeaways from our guest, Pia Choudhury

On May 24th, we hosted our third webinar of the RE.View series that aims to bring together real estate and tech specialists to discuss the hottest topics of the moment.?

Oana Modorcea , Head of Comms & Investor Relations at Bright Spaces, sat down with Pia Choudhury , an independent communications and strategy advisor specialising in commercial real estate and built world innovation.

They covered the most important things to know about PR in real estate: what strategies pay off, the role of automation, the impact of technology and ESG, misconceptions and measuring success.

Read the most important takeaways below or listen to the recorded webinar here.?

How would you define PR today??

Pia Choudhury: PR today is very different to what it was 20 years ago when I first came into the business. PR comes from the word public relations or press relations, depending on which part of the world you're in. It used to be about building relationships with your public through the media.?

PR is the art of influencing a third party to talk about your business in a way that supports your business objectives, essentially.

But the world today is very different. All of your stakeholders for any business, they are not just consuming one media, they are consuming many media across multiple touchpoints.? In fact, they're potentially a media themselves too, given social media, right??

I typically talk about communications instead of PR because I think PR is quite limiting.?

Communications is about taking a 360 view of your reputation and shaping it, shaping what you say about yourself according to relationships with your stakeholders, whoever they are.?

The stakeholder that influences a commercial real estate landlord today is so different to 20 years ago. We used to just talk to the occupiers, agents, brokers, architects, to people in our world. It was quite a closed real estate community in a way. But now we have to talk to everyone. From a customer perspective, the experience of the user, the Occupiers workforce, the people that make the decisions, the people that use the spaces, communities, neighbours. You've got to think about how your story lands with so many people, and they are not always only B2B audiences. A lot of them are community and consumer audiences.

What is the most important thing to keep in mind when we're building your strategy or your communication strategy in real estate?

Pia Choudhury: We always start with who you are, who you want to talk to and what action you want that person or that audience to take. That's the foundation.?

All of our work is about understanding your audience because they're all listening for different things. When you think about stakeholders, you want to plot them out in terms of who has a power to influence decisions (as it relates to your business), and who has interest in your story; think about those groups/individuals in terms of what they read, what events they go to, who influences them??

It's when the comms and marketing teams have a seat at the table early on, to understand where the strategy is going.

We can lay the groundwork, we can start telling that story, we can start bringing on side all the stakeholders that you need who have the most power and influence in that process for you to get to where you want to.?

What's your take on the collaboration between a PR professional and a marketing professional in real estate or communications?

Pia Choudhury: They are two parts of the same focus because stakeholders have so many multiple touch points.

We are both a mouthpiece for your business. We are telling a positive story about your business. We're trying to attract interest and understanding with your audiences.?

While there is a lot of crossover, Comms draws on slightly different methodology, which on paper looks less science-backed than marketing.?

Communication is about long-term reputation, and the dialogue with stakeholders that builds relationships, using content that is relevant, compelling and timely.?

What are some challenges you see in PR for real estate??

Pia Choudhury: There's a lot of noise, especially online. We are witnessing a generational change here in how we interact with AI and even with social media now such a big part of business. Being able to filter noise from quality information, being able to decide (as a consumer) what I need to learn about and educate myself, who is an actual thought leader and who is just sprouting so much content that makes them seem like a thought leader - it's really hard to get that balance right.

That's a challenge that is very uniquely at the fore for the marketing and communications team. We are constantly battling that challenge. You have to be telling a consistent, compelling story - that you can prove - that is relevant, compelling and timely.

It's not just content for the sake of content. It's too noisy a market for that now.?

The other challenge is the pace of it. 24-hour news cycle, multi-platform media outlets, always-on social media… I think in communications, you always feel like you're chasing something.?

But there isn’t always just one platform for your story. It’s about a balance across multiple platforms, and it’s about choosing quality - good media outlets or good stakeholder outlets and groups and communities or events. Then we have to add value - comms material has got to answer the question, “Why should I care about everything you do?”?

If we're looking at the last three years, things have changed a lot in commercial real estate with hybrid work and refurbishments and new styles of work. How do you think PR can help landlords in this context?

Pia Choudhury: In the last three, five years, the shift has been in the language; the different style of messaging that landlords use was phenomenal.?

Marketing and comms used to be so real estate focused. They've really opened that up. I think we've been talking about customer experience in offices way before that. But now the narrative has gone up all the way to the top in how we report, how we present our data as a business. It's much more about talking to the whole market.

We're all recognising real estate has a power and a purpose far bigger than within the real estate sector.?

We influence how people are living and moving and working, and we have a role to play, especially in energy efficiency and minimising carbon impact. So why have we been talking in this small way just to each other? I've seen so many businesses rebrand, reposition themselves and start talking to people – customers, communities, neighbourhoods: “We're creating a space. We hope that space contributes to your community or your office or your company.”?

Looking at how much technology we’re seeing in commercial real estate lately, how can this be translated into PR benefits, especially given the role PR can play in commercial leasing or management??

Pia Choudhury: Tech can be used by the communications team to give us data that we can use because we are always looking for proof points. Any technology that gives us access to data to prove our narrative is fantastic. We want it!?

The tech itself is sometimes a cool piece of kit to show and share and get people excited about. For example, you've got something that looks brilliant, that has an interesting functionality or makes you think about a space in a different way. Real estate is such a visual asset class we get to play with. The tech is in itself something lovely to play with and look at and understand, but it also is a source of data for us, the comms team, and that's incredibly valuable.

How do you see the role of automation in PR for real estate?

Pia Choudhury: It's such early days. There's trends, there's fads, there's new things to look at.?

I can see the value of automation, of AI, of the kind of all the tools that are out there because it's making people more creative. It's a really nice way to test ideas, to spark creativity, to unblock writer's block, which is something that happens to everyone and a way of looking at the story from a different perspective.?

On LinkedIn we have so many people who haven't typically been so creative in their content, perhaps they’d always been quite formal. Suddenly they're playing, suddenly they're coming up with wacky ideas. What a great time to see people in business having a chance to play.?

But on the other hand, a company’s reputation is so important, it has influence on share price, on deals, on opportunities and growth.

In a world with so much content constantly thrown at us, the role of comms or marketing team is to curate the story.?

You can crate content through AI, but if it is not adding value, if it is not contributing to a compelling narrative that talks to your business’ themes, values, objectives and strategy – then it is just noise.?

When we are talking about communications in real estate, from your experience until now, what are some misconceptions you have encountered?

Pia Choudhury: One of the things I remember hearing a lot then, and I hear less now, is there's no such thing as bad coverage.?

As the communications and marketing team, we're thinking about your long-term reputation. We're not thinking just about coverage today. We're thinking about how that story links in with the other story, and the one before that, etc.

There is such a thing as bad coverage – if it misses the opportunity to tell the right story, or it miscommunicates an important message. These little things will chip, chip, chip away at the overall perception of your organisation, and ultimately weaken the quality of the reputation.?

Coverage for the sake of coverage is another challenge. The conversation or the question companies often forget is, “What do I want to get out of this story?” For every news or topic you put out into the world, or to the media, there must be a business-related goal. If when your comms team asks you “What do you want to get?” … And if your only answer is “I want to get into the FT”, then perhaps we're not asking you the right question.?

Understanding what action you want or what result you want out of your coverage is a really important first step before you make your media plan or before you make your content plan.?

Similarly, everyone wants to be in the big titles, but there is a lot to be said for a deeper, more quality conversation with a media title that can give you the space on their website or in their magazine to really tell your story.?

I would rather not spam the media or a journalist, but wait till I've got something to tell them that they're going to find interesting. Let's give them quality. Let's give them something that adds value to their readers.

How do you actually measure success in PR??

Pia Choudhury: It is challenging because it's not an exact science. And this is where marketing and communications have to work so closely together.

I would place more value in analysing how your business or the spokesperson is positioned versus their competitors or versus other thought leaders that they want to be aligned with. We can take a measure of perception in the market. The marketing and communications teams can use lots of tools, but we also have a gut instinct about conversation or perception in the market – “I've seen this before, I know where this is going to travel. Let's capture it or let's roll it back, depending on what our objective is.”

I think communications teams and marketing teams are really good at testing - In the same way your product team will test with their customers/users on UX… We do the same - How does this message land with our audience, let’s get feedback from journalists, from industry leaders. We're really good at that. Communication is about listening. Communication is about dialogue.?

What should real estate companies pay attention to when it comes to communicating their ESG efforts?

Pia Choudhury: I think where it sometimes can go wrong is when the communications and marketing team are told at the end, this is what we're doing as it relates to ESG. Off you go. Go and talk about it.?

It’s important to bring your comms team in, ensure we can work really closely with the sustainability team or the business partners within the business to understand from the get go what you're trying to do, because there's two ways you can do it.?

You can either wait till you've achieved all your awards and ratings and then shout about it, or you can be transparent about your process and you can say, Hey, this is what we're trying at the minute and this is working and we're going to go back into testing for this. We all understand this is a huge shift that we need to take. We all understand the cost involved in it. The message can be that we've got these teams working on these things and this is happening.

Humans do like to know the backstory. We're curious. We're nosy. We love human stories and understanding the people that are trying to do this project, understanding what it looks like on the ground, understanding, Hey, there's an extra step we had to put into this process to account for whatever environmental measure that's needed.?

ESG is a particularly challenging area because there's so much pressure to get it right. Companies need to be really clear on what they're trying to say and allow their communications or marketing advisors or teams to be part of that very early on so that we can help have a program, a rollout for that story.?

What are some PR tactics that can be used by any real estate company, regardless of their budgets?

Pia Choudhury: The idea that you only start building your reputation when you hire a PR agency and get coverage is misplaced. In actual fact, you start building your reputation the moment you exist, the moment the company is formed and your senior team are out talking to people in the market.?

When your team is at a conference, you are building your reputation because of how people interact with you, the story they get from all your representatives – it’s? how they see you on a panel, how they see your LinkedIn, your social media, your website, that's all adding to an idea of a reputation.?

I think anyone, any company, landlord or proptech or an advisor, any company can sit down and think about two things.

Think about your message.

Who are your stakeholders? Do this exercise if you know what your story is, what you're trying to do as a business, then do the exercise of a stakeholder map, big sheet of paper, and write down all of the stakeholders. Think about all those stakeholders and then take the time to understand what drives them. Pick the most influential five and then do a swot.?

Do they have power or do they have interest? If they have interest, give them more information. Educate them, Get them to be your ambassador, Get them to understand everything about you so they can share your story because they're interested, interested in your technology or they're interested in your architecture and they just want to spread the word. For those that have the power make sure they have the information that enables them to make a decision, make sure they've got the data, make sure they've got the third party endorsement from other influential parties.

The next part of that is to understand your blind spots. What are the most awkward, difficult, challenging questions you might be asked? And as you're working with people, capture the questions that you're getting on the go. Those questions help us understand the blocks of people understanding your business and you can then change your narrative or adapt your narrative to answer those questions before they're asked.?

Another cost effective, although cost is challenging, is to be more present on LinkedIn because the cost there might be the leadership’s time, because typically they have the experience, knowledge and influence. LinkedIn is about people and you know, more and more people are using LinkedIn as a source of their news. How do you want to approach it? What kind of LinkedIn personality do you want to have??

LinkedIn is a platform that wants you to be present, engage on the platform, add value to all of the people that you're talking to, and that's fairly straightforward and that's something anyone and everyone can do to build up. That's a huge part of the reputation, knowing if you're out there in the market, anyone who meets you, they're going to go and dig you up on LinkedIn anyway. They're going to go and see what you're about.

I think you can do LinkedIn quite lightly and still get a lot of value and build your reputation, just remembering everything you do out in the market, out in the world is reputation building for the business and yourself.?

How do you find the best way to communicate between the built world that has a bit more of a traditional way of putting out their message, and tenants who are mostly Gen Zs and millennials who use a very different language? How can communications help with levelling this difference?

Pia Choudhury: All generations can speak a simple language, that is jargon free, that talks about impact – rational benefits and emotional benefits in the same way. It's just that the way the information is packaged might be slightly different because Gen Z are perhaps engaging with content in a different way to different generations, some prefer long form content, that is more data backed in the first instance.?

It is the same root story, but you're packaging it or you're presenting it in a way that appeals to the audience that you want. As humans, as consumers, we respond to FOMO, we respond to pressure, we respond to challenges emotionally. We all respond to the same things.

Keep your language human, keep your language open, keep your language approachable, friendly and jargon free.?

Thank you for participating in our webinar, Pia!

Listen to Pia and Oana’s live conversation here and stay tuned for the next webinar!