Facing My Fear of PR

As I sit reading my reflection from the beginning of the year, I am still filled with the same anxiety and terror about the campaign plan book as when I wrote my first blog post back in January. One of my fears before this class started was that I would not be creative enough to come up with solutions for the issue the client had. Now that I have went through the whole process of a campaign book, I am baffled that people are able to create much longer ones in a much shorter amount of time. I feel like this has been a real struggle and that it really pushed me to think outside the box and be creative. I also mentioned not having confidence in my writing and I still feel like my writing is not good enough. But at the same time I try to tell myself that this is was my first time doing anything pr related so this was obviously a challenge. One thing I do regret not doing is taking CAP 115, because I feel like that would have helped a lot with going through this class. There have been many times during the semester that I just wanted to give up but I’m glad I’ve stuck through and that class is almost over.

One thing that I did really enjoy about this class was the frequent blog posts that pushed me to explore different areas of pr.  I feel that this really expand my research skills by having to search for different scholarly and peer reviewed journals and articles. Before this class I would really struggle with researching and absolutely dread it. But doing research so often has alleviated some of the dread that I felt about this. Although I still have some anxiety about my writing and often are surprised by my grades on the blogs. I think a major thing that I have to face is my anxiety and lack of confidence in my writing.  Even though I have done well in my other classes with writing, but when I have new writing assignments I feel scared. This class exposed me to different styles of writing like for a blog or writing the plan book. I think that this will be useful in my future career. Working at a nonprofit often means people have to do multiple jobs, so I think knowing how to blog will be good because I will be able to blog for the organization I work for and make sure that the community is informed about the events happening.

Another thing that I learned that will be helpful in my future career is all the uses that we learned for social media. I think it was useful to learn the best ways to use social media websites like twitter and facebook in order to best reach the community. I learned that it’s possible to advertise on facebook and even narrow down specific demographics to advertise to so that my message is the most affective.  I learned about twitter and facebook analytics so that I am able to see the reach and impressions of the things that I post. I can also see where the people that most often view my post are located so I will know what areas I should focus my efforts on. Also I thought it was interesting that I have the ability to to also analyze other peoples twitter accounts to find out how much reach that that person has, and how influential their tweets will be. Taking this class has really opened my eyes to all of the benefits that using social media has even though based on my first blog post, I was a little skeptical of it at first. I think that this has really helped me realize all the potential and benefits of using social media as long as it is managed properly.

My definition of pr has changed a bit since first starting the class. I think that I have learned that pr is literally a part of almost every form of communication that a client or company will have with others. There is a lot of hard work, writing, and stress involved with job. I think a major part of pr that I never realized is people, there is a lot of focus of getting a message out to people and the most effective ways to do it. I also learned that the lines between pr, marketing, and advertising are beginning to blur as we move further into the digital age.

Even though I am not an ad/pr major or minor I think that this class was very beneficial to me. It opened my eyes on just how valuable pr can be to a client and gave me real life experience that I rarely get in other classes in the school of communications. This class helped me recognize the importance of pr in my current internships and I have learned skills that will help me in my career as well. Overall, this class was difficult and required a lot of work but I’m glad that I challenged myself and gained some new skills regardless of what grade I end up getting in this class.

Did I Make An Impact?

With most things in life we feel the need to be reassured that the effort that we’re putting into something is really worth it. Whether it be a relationship, hobby, or in this case a public relations campaign. Evaluation important to know if the campaign is going well and what, if any, changes need to be made to make it more successful.

The first thing that it is important to note is that evaluation is not just something that happens at the end of the campaign, it should be something that is applied throughout. Business Matters, a business magazine in the United Kingdom, emphasizes the importance of not waiting to start evaluating a campaign. One tip they give as part of their article “Five Principles of Good PR Campaign Evaluation”, is to evaluate objectively and accurately before the campaign starts, so that there will always been a baseline to measure the effectiveness of the campaign (2013). This is a good tip to know because before a campaign starts there should be a clear standards set for what will make the campaign seen as successful.

Increasingly, a useful way to evaluate a campaign is based on its impact on social media. Many public relations professionals use websites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and sometimes Snapchat to reach audiences with their message. According to Macnamara (2014), one common way to measure if a social media campaign is successful is to look at reach and impression (also known as opportunities to see). Macnamara defines reach as “the number of people in an audience” and impressions as “a measure of exposures that content might gain, including multiple exposures, that one person might experience” (2014). Exposing people to a company’s product being promoted will help more people be informed. This could easily be applied to the five stages of the adoption process. Awareness is the essential first step in the process; so if you are promoting a product on social media, you want to have a large reach and impressions to ensure that the product is gaining exposure and people are becoming aware of it.

If you are doing a campaign for a company that involves selling a product, it is important to evaluate if consumers actually bought the product. Sure, social media may have bee a tool used to create exposure, but did that actually motivate people to buy the product? According to Mel Carson, principal strategist at Delightful Communications, increasingly the lines between public relations and marketing are merging (2015). Now PR professionals can use analytics that will tell what site consumers came from before they purchased the product being promoted (Carson 2015). This is useful to evaluate if the campaign is having an effect in attracting consumers.

Evaluation is sometimes hard and uncomfortable. Evaluation requires a lot of thought, strategy, and honesty with ourselves. However, we want to ensure that we are striving to meet the expectations that the client has for us. Regardless of if the campaign turns out to be a failure or success, evaluation allows us to see what we did well or what should be changed, and the insight we gain can be applied and used to in future endeavors.

 

 

References

Business Matters (2013). Five Principles of Good PR Campaign Evaluation. Retrieved from www.bmmagazine.co.uk/in-business/advice/five-principles-good-pr-campaign-evaluation/

Carson, M. (2015). 4 Alternative Metrics To Evaluate Your PR Campaign’s Success. Retrieved from https://entrepreneur.com/article/248191

Macnamara, J. (2014). Emerging International Standards for Measurement and Evaluation of Public Relations: A Critical Analysis. Public Relations Inquiry,3: 7–29, doi:10.1177/2046147X14521199

PR and Education

When I first decided that I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector, I had very little idea what that meant or what type of job I would be doing.  After taking a few classes and interviewing people in the field, I thought that I wanted to work at a nonprofit that specialized in providing healthcare to minorities and people of low socioeconomic status. My dream was to work at a place like Cherry Health, located downtown. So last year when I began to pick my schedule for the fall semester of 2015, I was determined to get an internship at a nonprofit whose mission involved healthcare. Well as I began to search for internships I realized that this would be much harder than I thought, especially with limited relevant previous experience. However after talking to my professors in the nonprofit department, they encouraged me not to limit myself to one area of the nonprofit sector, because often times people in the field move to different nonprofits that have different missions. With their advice, I decided to broaden my search and found an internship at Catholic Central High School. Although, I never imagined working at a school, and wasn’t quite sure what type of skills would be needed.

For the past six months working at Catholic Central, I have learned and witnessed how crucial public relations is to the education system. From sending out alumni newsletters, informing people about events, or rectifying  miscommunication with parents, public relations is a key part of what happens everyday at a school.

One thing that I never realized is how schools need public relations to alert the media about events that are happening at the school to promote a positive image of the school. According to the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), for schools to have a good relationship with the media it is important that they provide clear accurate information to the media (“Policies that Work”). NSPRA also advocates that the school board “have publication prepared as needed to keep citizens informed about educational services, achievements, needs, costs, revenues, and expenditures” (“Policies that Work”). While working as a development intern, I saw this happen in real life. One of the first events I worked on was a walk-a-thon that the students do to raise tuition assistance. I remember how important it was that we got pictures and videos of the event so that we would have something to send to the media. At the time I didn’t fully understand the importance of promoting this event to the media and its role in strengthening our support from the community.

Another realization I’ve had about public relations’ significance in the education system is remaining on good terms with parents. In his book highlighting successful tips for public relations in schools, Moore states that it is important to promote the right image that you want the parents to have of the school (2009). Moore encourages schools to remember to train all staff, not just principals or communication directors, to have the ability to communicate effectively with parents (2009). Communication with the parents is a valuable part of the educational system. Although I’ve never been a parent, working for a Catholic school has shown me how we need to have positive relationships with parents because they affects decide whether or not their younger children will attend the school or if they will encourage other families from their parish to send their children to the school.

Lastly, public relations is important for the education system when it comes to crises. When faced with a crises schools it’s imperative that schools remain transparent and reply to the public in a timely manner. According to and Education World’s article, in order to reduce confusion schools should assign “… one agreed-upon spokesperson. That person should be prepared with facts in writing to refer to. Be honest but don’t be lured into speculation” (“Public Relations 101”). When we have faced some communication issues at Catholic Central, we usually have one person as the ‘point person’ that is assigned to send emails, talk to parents and donors.

Over the past few months, I learned how essential public relations is to a school in ways that I had never thought of before. Even though I have been a student my whole life, I never saw how much public relations and communication actually goes into education, but after the experience at my internship I am able to see its value. Hopefully, the skills I’ve learned there will help me with future jobs and maybe even work at another private school one day. 

References

Education World (n.d). Public Relations 101: Tips for School Administrators (and Other School Professionals). Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin123.shtml#sthash.mFXjr3rS.dpuf

Moore, E. H. (2009). School public relations for student success. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin. 49-55.

National School Public Relations Association (n.d). Policies That Work: Public Information Programs. Retrieved from http://www.nspra.org/getting_started

And the Crisis Goes to…

 

When I think of public relations conflict/crisis management, an image of Kerry Washington playing the character Olivia Pope comes to mind.  However, public relations crisis happen everyday and not just at a dramatized level that concerns national security. Conflict management involves monitoring the image of a person or organization in the public and then working to change their image if it is unfavorable.  Once conflicts arise it is important that someone skilled in crisis management be present to help the organization or person muddle through and restore a positive public image.

The conflict I chose to cover is the recent Academy Awards scandal.  When the Oscars nominations were released it became overwhelmingly obvious that the work and performances of people of color were once again being overlooked and excluded from the ceremony.  This led to public backlash coming from members of the black community, celebrities, and people that care about the ongoing diversity issue in Hollywood.  Social media got involved with the trending hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.  Also, many celebrities like Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Moore, and Spike Lee, decided that they would boycott the Oscars and some people urged Chris Rock to step down from hosting it (O’Neal 2016).

The conflict management life cycle can be applied to this this current issue.  The first phase in conflict management is proactive.  The Oscars engages in this phase by always being informed on current trends, which is known as environmental scanning.  The Oscars does this by offering services like online streaming of the awards when the trend towards online streaming emerged.  Additionally, the Oscars engages in issues tracking by having social media accounts to monitor, interact, and inform the public.

The next phase in conflict management is the strategic phase.  This involved the Academy identifying the crisis and then analyzing how best to tackle this situation.  They had to devise a strategy of the best way to address the diversity issue and be viewed favorably by the public.  This is the second year in a row that the Oscars has had to deal with criticism in regards to diversity so they probably already had some sort idea of how they were going to deal with this issue.

The third phase to the conflict management life cycle is reactive. This is when the Academy implemented the strategy that they came up with in during the strategic phase.  The Academy chose to implement the crisis communication strategy of a corrective action.  In a press release, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs stated “The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond” (Georgantopoulos 2016). Isaac acknowledge the issue and said that the Academy will work to rectify this situation. She also addressed the fact that this has been a repeated issue when she said, “As many of you know, we have implemented changes to diversify our membership in the last four years. But the change is not coming as fast as we would like. We need to do more, and better and more quickly” (Georgantopoulos 2016). Additionally, the Academy has increased promotion of Chris Rock as the host. Although social media criticized and mocked them for the lack of diversity, the Academy is trying to use social media as a way to restore their image. In a study of the efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in 2011, Rasmussen (2015), found that although social media was part of the major push for defunding, Planned Parenthood was able to to use it for their benefit to inform the public of the consequences of what would happen is they were defunded.

The last phase of the cycle is recovery. This involves reputation management which includes researching the organizations reputation or sometimes image restoration. In my opinion, the Academy is undergoing image restoration because they are striving to make genuine changes in the organization to become more inclusive and restore their public image.

It’s hard to say how successful this the conflict management of this situation is.  The Academy completed all the steps of the conflict management life cycle, however the jury of public opinion is still out.  In some way, this will be easier to judge after the actual Oscars takes place.  The ceremony could help improve the image of the Academy or things could take a turn for the worse and Chris Rock could choose to use his hosting gig as a platform to further the criticism of the lack of diversity amongst the nominees.  Or maybe one of the award winners will take this as an opportunity to bring more attention to this issue, similar to when Marlon Brando won an oscar for The Godfather.  Only time will tell if the image of the Oscars can be restored. If the Academy actually follows through with Isaacs’ promise to improve diversity, then hopefully instead of facing controversy for another year, the Oscars can return to focusing on trivial matters like the red carpet coverage.

References

Georgantopoulos, M. A. (2016). Academy President “Heartbroken and Frustrated” Over Lack of Oscars Diversity. Retrieved from http://www.buzzfeed.com/maryanngeorgantopoulos/spike-lee-to-boycott-the-oscars-over-lack-of-diversity#.hrNz7PBGV

O’Neal, L. (2016). Is it better for Chris Rock to host the Oscars or Boycott it. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/should-chris-rock-host-the-oscar-ceremony-0r-boycott-it/2016/01/23/53e0f7ea-c131-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html

Rasmussen, L. (2015). Planned parenthood takes on live action: An analysis of media interplay and image restoration strategies in strategic conflict management.Public Relations Review, 41(3), 354-356. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.01.004

Is Research Really That Important?

Why is research important in public relations? I’ll admit that in high school researching was my absolute least favorite task to do. The process seemed tedious and I was never taught a uniform way to research and then present the research in my paper. Being that I’m a junior in college, I would like to think that my research skills have improved, although research has not been the main focus of any class that I have taken until recently. And I suspect that this will probably be the most challenge class that I will encounter when it comes to researching.

Now that I’ve somewhat developed an idea for what public relations entails, I understand why research is so important and why GVSU has a whole class, CAP 115, dedicated to research. The field of public relations relies on research as part of its foundation. Research is important in the field of public relations because it gives the public relations professionals information about the public and the specific demographic they’re trying to reach, this information can then go on to help create a message that best connects the public with the client. 

Research can help in some unexpected ways. An article posted from public relations firm Mitchell Communications Group (2013) discusses how research is an important factor for the clients because it not only provides information on the demographic that a client is trying to reach, but it can also provide additional information on opportunities and demographics that a client hasn’t considered yet. This can help the client grow their vision to something larger than what they initially thought and help them reach more people. In public relations we have to come up with creative solutions and researching can help discover even more solutions that will help the client.

Research is crucial in the evaluation stage. According to a post from the public relations firm Skogrand PR Solution, Auren (2015) discusses why research is vital to public relations for a number of reasons. One point that Auren made that I found really interesting is that “research grants proper evaluation. The final activity in a public relations plan is to prepare an evaluation of the plan. Proper measurement and assessment can only be administered when compared to baseline research. Therefore, if a baseline of research is not collected at the beginning of a plan then the effectiveness of the final evaluation diminishes”. This is interesting to me because I never considered the lasting effects that proper research can have in public relations. I always thought of research as a task that happens at the beginning of a working with a client. However, research can be used not only to supply information about the demographic that is trying to be reached but then can be used in the evaluation of the campaign to find out if they accomplished what they set out to do. 

Research is evolving. In the past few decades the field of public relations has changed a immensely. In a study done by Meadows and Meadows (2014), they researched the evolving history of research in the public relations field from 1975-2013. Researchers randomly picked 725 articles from two public relation journals, the Journal of Public Relations Research and the Public Relations Research Annual. The researchers found trends in the development of quantitative methods of research like surveys and content analysis. They also noticed a rise in different qualitative methods like interviews rather than using focus groups. These trends are significant because that means that there is a move towards seeking more input from the public and consulting them about issues before moving forward. I think that this in turn will result in a closer relationship with the public that will prove to be beneficial in creating more effective campaigns. 

So research is actually very important in all stages of public relations plans and is not something that should just be done haphazardly. Also research is changing, over the course of the next few years, I think that research will continue to grow and new ways will be created to research the public.

Despite the fact that I do not see my future career being directly in the public relations field, I think that public relations will definitely be something that is a part of it.  The skills that I am currently learning in research, will help with my professional writing, reaching new donors, and grant writing.

References

Auren, M. (2015). Just How Important is Research in Public Relations. Retrieved from skograndpr.com/2015/09/10/just-how-important-is-research-in-public-relations-plans/

Meadows, C., & Meadows, C. (2014). The history of academic research in public relations: Tracking research trends over nearly four decades. Public Relations Review, 40(5), 871-873. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.06.005

Mitchell Communication Group (2013) .Public Relations: The Value and Importance of Research. Retrieved from blog.mitchcommgroup.com/mitchell-communications-group-the-value-and-importance-of-research

Fundamentals of PR… Yikes!

I remember a few years ago when I was obsessed with Sex and the City,  I admired the life of the character Samantha Jones, who owned her own public relations firm. Based on that show, my initial thought was that public relations is just planning events for other people and networking. Eventually my definition and understanding of public relations evolved.  Now, I think of public relations as the management of the way an organization or individual is perceived by the public, which can include promoting the image of an organization through events, but not relying solely on it.

Towards the end of my freshman year, I remember talking to some of my upperclassmen friends that were also in the school of communications, and asking them about what classes they liked and disliked and professors to take. Most people I know said that Cap 220 was one of the hardest classes that they took because it was so time consuming due to the amount of work. Back then I was not sure what my emphasis would be, so I was still not sure if I would even be required to take this class. But when I decided on health communications, I knew what my fate would be.

Naturally, my anxiety for this class is high, I am legitimately nervous about the difficulty of this class based on what previous student told me and especially since I had not taken Cap 115. Even looking at the syllabus, course schedule, and campaign assignment gave me some heightened sense of anxiousness. I remember thinking I don’t even know what the hell a campaign booklet is. I think most of my anxiety comes from wondering if I will be creative enough to come up with attention getting and unique concepts. I’ve never thought of myself as “creative” type of person. Another reason for my uneasiness is that I do not have a lot of confidence in my writing, freshman year I did absolutely terrible in Writing 150. However, since then I’ve taken two SWS classes and written many more papers and done really well but somehow I still feel somewhere in between being illiterate and getting really lucky with the all the other papers I’ve written.

Despite my apprehension I know that I had to take this class and do the best that I can. Overall, I know that the information that I will learn about public relations will help me in my future career in the nonprofit sector. Based on what I learned and observed at my internship at Catholic Central High School, I know that public relations is a valuable skill when it come to working in the development department and maintaining positive donor relations.

Although, I am not the most active or attentive consumer of social media, I am hoping that this class will help me see more value in it, at least when it comes to fundraising and creating awareness for a cause. My goal is to become well rounded in task that I could possibly encounter while working at a nonprofit, whether it be public relations, grant writing, volunteer coordination, or event planning. Also I want to learn how to write informative pieces that will spark public interest in the organization or highlight positive events or accomplishments that have happened in the organization. I guess ultimately, I would like to become more competent writer.

Ultimately I am extremely nervous and eager to start this class and learn about public relations!