Reflection of My Short Life in PR

As I sit here and read my very first PR blog post, I can’t help but a laugh a little bit. I tried so hard to make myself seem like I knew what I was talking about and I realize now that I jumped the gun a little bit. I’m not embarrassed, maybe just a little too self-critical. It is quite satisfying to see how far I have come in this program. Before this class I had never even written an APA style paper. Believe it or not I just wrote a 35 page APA style campaign! Taking this class has really helped me in so many ways, I couldn’t be more thankful for an awesome professor to teach me these vital tools. This may just be my opinion but I feel like I’m a field like this a person must be malleable and they must be willing to accept criticism as well as use it to their advantage! This was an important lesson that I have learned thus far. Just by taking this class I have learned so many things in this semester that felt like an ultimate hell, but in reality it was one of the most beneficial semesters I’ve had during my college career.

I will admit, I was super nervous about taking CAP 220 without taking any other recommended pre-courses. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into, but I don’t regret a single moment of it. Yeah, there were moments where I really wanted to give up and where I couldn’t even bring myself to look at my work. I am a very anxious person and a bit of a nit-picker, and writing my first campaign definitely pushed my limits. The worst part of this whole experience was when I felt so uninspired that I was unable to work. I tried and tried to work on the campaign and nothing came to me, I was constantly hitting a wall.

What really pushed me to keep working was that this whole class was working me up to this point and the more I learned the more inspired I felt. I felt inspired to make this campaign my own, I was making something represented myself as well as my style of work. Not many classes at this level allow students to showcase their work and not many get the opportunity to work with a real client. This project taught me a lot about time management as well as how important deadlines actually are.

Going into this course I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I didn’t know or understand the multitude of channels that this industry and profession can go. This course along with Adrienne have opened me up to a whole new world. I used to never enjoy writing, but for some reason since I have taken this class I absolutely have found my niche. I was never very confident in my writing but now it just flows out of me. I had a professor tell me once that I write like I speak and that it isn’t a good thing. Well blogging, allows me to speak my mind in my own tone of voice that allows people to actually feel my personality through these words.

Along with blogging and my newly found love for writing, I have also become very interested in conflict and crisis management. I find this aspect of PR very exciting and always changing, which goes along with my “fast-paced” life style. This course has opened me up to so many new opportunities and knowledge, in other courses we memorize and repeat. This course has allowed me to practice, make mistakes, solve my problems, and implement my solutions. I’ve recently read in an article that you have to choose an area of study or a career that you can be passionate about, and if you aren’t passionate and driven towards whatever you’re striving for, then you need to reevaluate. I know now after having a small amount of experience and really learning and getting the experience of what is actually done in the PR world. It’s refreshing to have a professor who truly cares about her students, wants them to succeed. You didn’t spoon feed us information, you made us work hard, shed blood, sweat and tears, but you’re also always there with the encouragement and reassurance.

I’m so excited to announce that I have been accepted for an Account Associate position for Grand Valley’s own student run PR firm! I would have never have even applied or even thought about applying if I wouldn’t have taken this course. I am so ready now to use the knowledge and experience that I have gained from this course to help others and show the world what I am capable of.

I’m really sad that this course is coming to an end, and I would like to thank Adrienne Wallace for all of the encouragement and work. This is what I needed and you helped me find my passion, again, thank you.

 

Evaluation, A Tool That Should Always Be Utilized

The aspects of evaluation are essential to any PR pro’s profession. Evaluation is especially needed in the many campaigns that a PR pro will have to face in their career. According to the Public Relations Society of America (2016), evaluation has many aspects such as proving the accuracy of results that are acquired, as well as allowing the PR pro revise objectives, strategies and tactics as well as creating better of the three to overall improve the campaign or project. Evaluation can also allow the PR pro to catch issues or problems in the campaign and terminate the issue or problem before it becomes a crisis that is uncontrollable.

There are many methods of evaluation some take a more traditional route, and some can be a bit more “out of the box”. One way to evaluate is to survey people which is used by almost every business. A survey allows a business or client to get quick results about their customer or consumer base. Surveys are essentially an easy type of evaluation as anyone can create a survey. The concepts of a survey that tend to get a bit tricky are the questions that are asked, such as the content of the question and the number of questions in a survey. No one wants to take a survey for a business or for really any reason that will take them an hour to complete. That is, unless they are being compensated by completing the survey. It is crucial for the people providing a survey have the survey takers in mind and that if they want respectable and honest data, the survey must me customer and consumer friendly. The survey timing is also quite important as Johnson (2016) states in her article “It’s important that surveys be done prior to your PR program so you have a baseline measurement — that is, what awareness, perceptions and attitudes existed prior to your program, and then conduct a post-program survey”. If possible it’s important to try and have a prior as well as post survey if the campaign or the organization allows it. This would then provide the details of how perceptions can change through out a certain time period, once the research participants have had experiences and gained more knowledge about the subject or topic. Although surveying is a strong method of evaluation, there are numerous methods for evaluating a campaign or PR program.

Another example of evaluation would be the outputs and outcomes of a campaign or PR program.  Baker (2011) defines outputs and outcomes as “Next, differentiate between measuring PR outputs, which are usually short-term (the amount of press coverage received or exposure of a particular message), and measuring PR outcomes, which are usually far-reaching and can have more impact (determining if the program changed awareness and attitude levels and possibly behavior patterns)”. These two aspects are very important because sort of like the survey they get you important information about clientele, or how the public eye perceives your message. The output allows you to get a feel for how strong your message is according to the audience that is potentially affected. This also can affect your strategies and tactics for your campaign and this allows you to tailor them according to the results you receive from your output. The outcome is also just as important because the information gained from this method of evaluation highly impacts research and could also affect future strategies and tactics because the whole point of the outcome is to see if any of the audience was personally affected.

 

 

Baker, Sheldon. (2011) Public relations evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/blogs/tonic/2011/06/public-relations-evaluation.aspx

Johnson, Karen, S. (2016). Evaluation techniques used in PR. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/evaluation-techniques-used-pr-61478.html

Public Relations Society of America. (2016). Measurement resources. Retrieved from https://www.prsa.org/intelligence/businesscase/measurementresources/#.VwRNwBIrLUo

 

PR, The Back Bone of An Artist

A day does not go by where I do not listen to music, there are just some things that I cannot do without listening to music. This may seem a bit ridiculous but music can highly affect my mood. I always try to stay informed of new music that is coming out as well ass listen for new artists or big things that will be happening in the music industry. PR is a large component in the music industry, it has a lot to do with the new ideas and news reaching the listeners rather than specifically the music.

Did Someone Call…Crisis Control?

When thinking PR my first thought isn’t crisis or how a public relations pro is helping a company or organization clean up after themselves. I think about how the PR person is representing the company or branding the organization. PR has many layers and they are not limited to face value. Crisis management is a very important layer of PR because every organization or company will face some sort of conflict or crisis at one point in time, and the people of PR are experienced professionals in helping organizations and companies deal with the mess. Can you imagine if businesses handled their own crises?

A recent example of a crisis to evaluate would be the Chipotle Mexican Grille chain. The chain has been under fire lately for unsanitary workplaces, unsafe food conditions, and consumers becoming sick from eating at the restaurant. Ryan (2016) from ABC’s Action News reports that “362 people got sick eating at chipotle’s around the country from E-coli, salmonella, and norovirus”. The conflict management life cycle can be applied to this example. The proactive phase of this model is used by chipotle everyday such as issues tracking, they utilize social media such as Twitter and Facebook to allow their consumers to ask questions and leave comments about the restaurant. There is also a feature on Chipotle’s website allowing consumers to email the company and leave comments, complaints or questions about anything concerning the restaurant. The company also applies issues management by replying to customers, as well as addressing their comments, questions and concerns, via email and social media. Zamani, Giaglis, and Kasimati (2015) state that “irrespective of their size, many companies seek to integrate these new media into their processes and actively use blogs, OSNs, virtual worlds and dedicated forums to develop direct relationships or strengthen existing ones with customers”. The relationship between corporation and consumer are strengthened by integrating new modes of communication between the two parties, this builds a trust from consumer to corporation and the corporation gains more insightful information. I feel as if the food industry should have a range of crises plans because there are various degrees and types of crises that could harm the consumer or the business directly. A credit card company clearly have a crisis plan in place for the cases in which people’s money is being stolen, identity is being stolen, etc. Chipotle needs more severe plans seeing as they can affect their consumer’s finances as well as their personal health.

When In Doubt, Research It.

Research is important in really any field but it is extremely vital to the PR field because we as a society are advancing every single day, as well as the technology that we utilize. Without research we as a society would not be able to evolve nor would anything be factual. We use research to make something viable and true. With constant research in public relations we are able to keep up to date with constantly changing trends and we are able to better our understanding of how and why these trends are constantly changing as well. Rainie (2010) explained to his students that “the world has moved from the social reality of tight-knit groups like families and villages to a looser confederation networked individuals. In the digital age, these networked individuals use media and information in new ways to solve problems, make decisions, and gain social support”. His explanation couldn’t be more true today, in this day and age you have to be creative with research and you must advance with society because as it evolves everything within it is also somehow evolving which allows us to utilize new ways to research and gain information. While twenty years ago people were limited to journals, magazines, and books, we now have things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram which we can obtain personal, professional, and instant information from a large demographic.

After researching types of research that is conducted in the public relations world, I have found a method that I feel is able to gain a response from a knowledgeable group of people on a certain topic. Kennedy (2004) defines the Delphi method as “an opportunity for experts (panelists) to communicate their opinions and knowledge anonymously about a complex problem, to see how their evaluation of the issue aligns with others, and to change their opinions, if desired, after reconsideration of the findings of the group’s work” (p.504). I feel like this method could be very effective when you want to compare people’s opinions and perceptions on a  certain topic. Such as if you had a client who wanted put out a new product, you could use the Delphi method to get consumer’s opinions on the product and see how their opinions are similar or or different.

At Grand Valley CAP 115 is an offered course to educate students on APR research. Although I haven’t personally taken the class, students take the class because we haven’t had much experience with research. In high school we are expected to use google to research and we aren’t taught how to use databases, or some may not even know what types of sources are available to use. Before coming to college I will admit, I didn’t know how to research and I didn’t really care to. But now that I am an educated college student, I have realized that research is crucial to everyday routines, anyone can say that they know something, but how can they explain or support their claims without research? Pollock (2012) states in her blog post “For demonstrable efficacy in understanding a problem, proposing a solution and forecasting the outcome, research is required. It is the key element to public relations success; the foundation of every effective campaign for public relations communication, wherein research may be described as the systematic and on-going collection and interpretation of information for the purpose of bringing about a specific objective”. There is no public relations without research, the research is what creates the outcomes of public relations, and the research must be constant and relevant because the details of a job or information about a certain job can change in an instant, ideas are constantly changing so we also need to follow and keep up with the most relevant trends. Grand Valley should require CAP 115 before allowing students to take CAP 220 because the students who haven’t taken CAP 115 could be at a disadvantage because they have not been taught a proper strategy and they don’t truly know how to research well.

In lieu of this blog post, I think we can all agree that through extensive research, research plays an absolute vital role in public relations.

 

 

Kennedy, H.P. (2004). Enhancing Delphi research: Methods and results. Journal of                                        Advanced Nursing, 45, 504-511.

Pollock, T (2012, August 18). The importance of research methodology in public relations       Retrieved from http://tarynpollock.com/2012/08/18/the-importance-of-research-methodology-in-public-relations/

Rainie, L. (2010). The Future of Public Relations [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/08/22/the-future-of-public-relations/

 

LOL..WTF..But PR?

When asked what public relations is, many people can not give an exact definition, in fact many definitions will be similar but there is a different aspect to every one. For my public relations class we were asked to define public relations with our own idea and in our own words. My definition was no different,  I defined public relations as the act of helping a business, organization or even a person give a certain “image” to the public, it can also be the act of helping  a business, organization or person get a message or idea across to their consumers or public audience.

I hate how Grand Valley makes students decide their major before they even attend classes, I had no idea what I wanted to major in but I felt pressured to choose, so I ended up choosing a double major in biology and psychology. After selecting these two programs,  I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and I really just needed to think. The more I thought about the idea, the more I was convincing myself that this is what I wanted to do with my life. Well after my first semester, I came to my senses and realized that I did not want anything to do with either of the two subjects. I realized that I had a love for people, and that if I want to have a career that I love then it should involve a large aspect of my life that I enjoy, and that aspect is working with people in someway. I need to find a path that I actually enjoyed the classes and that I didn’t dread doing the work. I changed my major to communication studies and I feel as if my school career has changed for the better. My emphasis is in public relations and I’m excited to actually be in a public relations course this semester. By having this class I’m really looking forward to learn what it is a person who works in public relations actually does and I’m also interested in learning the ins & outs. My main goal for this class is to come out with much more knowledge than what I’m coming in with and to also be able to get some real experience from this class whether it’s inside of the classroom or outside of the classroom. I want to learn from Professor Adrienne since she has been in this realm of public relations, what her highest and lowest points were within the job force as well as if she’s ever had any regrets with her role in PR.

I definitely feel as if I have found a path that I thoroughly enjoy and I feel like I can be creative, and make it my own in certain ways and sort of cut my own path as to where I want to work, and the specifics of the work that I’d like to do. A downfall of mine that I feel may affect my work is that I can be very self-critical  of my work and it I’m not the best person at accepting critical advice but I am working on it and I’m hoping that this class will help me in those aspects, as I know that a large part of PR is accepting critical advice and putting the advice towards future work and projects.

I’m definitely looking forward to this class and I’m excited for the experience.