Tag: public relations

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PR

My Semester with Public Relations

As I continue with my major in Advertisement and Public Relations I still do not have a defined image the differences between advertisement, public relations, and marketing. However, with this semester coming to an end I can now more clearly see what public relations is and how it helps business or any type of organization. My fundamentals of public relations class demonstrated the importance of public relations that I had never seen before. It helps keeps business in a good public eye, but even more important is how hard they work behind the sense. They are there maintaining the brand’s image, keeping the public relation healthy, but also always preparing for anything that may go wrong. At the beginning of this class I described public relations as, “the way a business interacts with the public, allowing them to create the brand image they desire.”

Now I can see that this idea is correct but is missing a lot. Public relations handle much more than the brand image. They manage events, press conferences, and anything that involves communication with the public. I also can see that their goal is not to sell product or serves they are trying to sell the brand. Even if public relations is not trying to sell the product, other parts of the company are. It is important to remember that public relations runs along side advertisement and marketing. It takes all three of these departments to have a successful company. Sometimes through out this semester I was so amazed by how much the public relation department was in charge of I would forget about the other ones. I am an ad focused and I would always think of the ad way of going about things, so it was important for me to remember that I am not in the department for this class. I enjoyed learning about public relations through this class, however it reinforced my belief that I want to follow my career in ad. Even if I do not pursue a career in public relations I do think it was good I was able to learn the basics of it.

Knowing the basics of public relations will help me collaborate easier with public relations workers in the future. It will allow me to know what they are capital of and understand their point of view. I enjoy the selling of products and not brands, and therefore, want to continue my degree with an ad focus.

Through out this semester I have worked very hard on my first ever planned book. This plan book came with a real client and their current problems. It showed me that in public relations you can work for business and organizations no matter how big or small. This plan book took me step by step in how you would create one in a real public relations situation. Now that it is finished, it feels great to have the weight off my shoulders, but it also left me something to be proud of. Most college classes end and you get a grade and move on, but this class left me with a 45 page plan book that has all my hard work and ideas in.

Cover to Ryan Baldwin’s plan Book.

Not everything in the plan book went smoothly. It took a lot of research and preparation to complete. But now I can see all my hard work together and see that it was all worth it! Everything tought me something. From the cover teaching me how to do simple designs on Canvans, to the time line teaching me new skills at excel, I learned something new from everything I did.

Now becoming a senior, I look forward to applying this knowledge into my classes next year. I am excited to be one step closer to start my career in ad, and I know I will be using the knowledge I learned in this class for the rest of my life.

Categories
PR

PR in Sports

It is important for sports teams to have good light in the public’s eyes. They make money off fans supporting them whether they are doing good or bad. If the public does not support the team or does not have access to information about the team, is it impossible for the organization to make money. This is where public relations comes in. The public relations department will ensure positive interaction between the team and its fans, allowing the team to have a profit every season. According to Jacquie L’Etang, the author of Sports Public Relations, “Public Relations is impacted at all levels whether handling major sponsorship and media rights deals, events, promoting stars or increasing participation” (p. 2). This quote shows all the different things that a teams public relation department is in charge of, and how important it is to the financial success of that team.

Top Agency reports that three of the most important things to do in sports PR are to utilize social media, connect with fans, and become familiar with reporters form all publications. It is important for sports teams to use many different social media plat forms. This allows for them to reach the largest amount of fans. If there were to be an emergency with the team, a PR crisis, or any need to contact a large amount of the fans social media would be able to provide the team to ability to do that. Next, it is important to connect with fans because that will increase your brand loyalty even if the team is not doing well. Some way to interact with fans are volunteer work, social media, meet and greats, or give sways. Lastly it is important to be familiar with reports because these are the people you will be working with everyday. News stations, both local and national, will create reports on your team, therefore, it is important to have healthy relationships with them in order to influence what is and what is not shared about your team.

Public relations in sports does not solely focus on the teams. They also have to worry about the players. It is important for the public to feel close and attached to the individual players. This is what drives the sales of jerseys and support even if it is a down season. Players also ad a big risk to the teams public eye. When a player is caught cheating or suspended for breaking the law or any other reason, it reflects poorly on the team. This problem then must be solved by the public relations staff for that team. On the other hand, there is also very good people on each team who the PR staff will share more information with the public about. This will bring light to the team as a whole, as it will make them look like a bunch of nice friendly players instead of cheating mean ones.

Sports Public Relations
Zoe Bernstein
Public Relations in Sports Industry. Word Press.

Joe Favorito, the author of Sports Publicity: A Partial Approach, brings up a third way PR is used in sports, which is working for the league. The things that a PR person for a league would do is, inform fans on any changes in the league such as rules, release stats and records, over see national or international media coverage, run championships or special events, and handle league wide crisis. These are things that individual teams are not in charge of or cannot control, so the league does it as a whole. Working for the league means you must communicate with the whole nation or world depending where teams or located. This is very large audience which must be reached, but it is important to make sure all fans are informed about what ever is happening. Not keeping fans update could cause them to lose interest in that sport, and possibly move on to a new one.

PR plays a big role in the sport business. It is important from each individual player, to the team, all the way up to the league. This keeps fans engaged with the sport and prevents any backlash that teams, leagues, or players may have throughout a season. PR is important in the finical success of any sports league.

Categories
Research

Research is Important Now and will be Forever

Just like many professional jobs, the field of public relations also relies heavily on research. This research can range from doing research on a product, to finding out what people think about the company, to finding the best way to reach the target market. They do research on their customers, but also on the business they are doing the PR for. Preforming research will insure they are doing the best possible idea out there, along with limit risks of back lash. According to Greg Leitchy and Jeff Springston, who both work for the Department of Communication at the University of Louisville, research is able to give researchers an insight to how managed communication influences the shape of the cultures it interacts with. This means that the way public relations acts in a community it can have a large effect on the people and culture it is taking place in. This is why it is important to research the culture of your target market to best communicate with them.

According to David Turier, a specialists in providing strategic counselling for large scale business, and Laurence Childs state, “Conducting Research is key to fully understand how to gain the attention of an audience when building a communications campaign. The last thing people want with a communications campaign is to find them selves screaming into the void…” This quote helps show that research is the reason that PR is able to reach the people they want to reach. With out research the PR will not reach anyone, and they will be talking to no one or “the void.” By doing research you are able to learn which media your target audience uses. Whether it is print, TV, or social media research will be able to figure it out. Research even goes beyond the media and sees what on that media they are looking for. If you are on the right media, but don’t get your targets attention then you are still not reaching them. Research will allow you to find and reach your audience.

With research being increasingly more important to PR, and other professional fields starting to do so much research, there have been new ideas of research. Some people believe that research can go too far and that there should be some rules you have to follow. This idea is supported by Don W. Stacks, the author of Primer of Public Relations Research Third Edition, when he stated, “With the increased reliance on research -both produced internally and framed out to professional firms- the question of data and research ethics has become more important than it was before.” There are laws and codes of ethics that keep research inline. They are there to keep the public safe from companies conducting unethical research. I think it is good to keep companies or firms within guide lines. It is also important for them to do things ethical and inform people what they are researching.

I am sure as time goes on the importance of research will only increase in PR. It is easy to see how important it is now, and there is no reason to believe it would ever back track. However, with research becoming more important it is also important to keep laws and regulations there to protect the public and keep companies ethical.

https://www.academia.edu/3792901/Importance_of_research_and_evaluation_in_public_relations

Why is research important in a communications campaign?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107769909607300215

Categories
social media technology

Public Relations is Not What I Thought it Was.

No matter how big or small a business is they have to worry about their public relations. To me public relations is the way a business interacts with the public, allowing them to create the brand image they desire. According to Caroline Black the author of The PR Practitioner’s Desktop Guide, “Public relations was born the moment the first organised group understood that it had a need to communicate with people- in other words it has been around since the dawn of civilization” (Black, p.7). This shows that all business have always had public relationships no matter when they were active through out time.

I am currently starting my first PR class at Grand Valley, and already through my first week I have learned so much. As an Ad emphasizes it took me an extra semester before getting to the PR classes. Before this class it was hard for me to see the difference between Ad and PR, but after this week I am beginning to see it. I now think of PR as the relationship between the company and the consumer where Ad is just trying to get the consumer to buy more or create new consumers. For example, on a social media for an Ad post may bring the price of a good and provide a link to buy it. Where on the other had, a PR post would focus on building the relationship between the customer and company, and would not show any mention of buying the product. Overall, I believe ads are focusing on making money where the focus of PR is to establish a bond between consumer and company.

As an Ad and PR major who is having difficulty understanding the difference between the two of these, it must look as if they are the same to people not involved in the industry. When research exactly what PR is I found a great quote by Robert Wynne, who is a Public Relations professional in California, where he states, ” The public relations industry does a terrible job of public relations.” In this quote he is trying to get the point across that people who work in the public relations field do a terrible job explain what there job is. This is very ironic sense they are paid to communicate to the public for a company, but fail to inform the public what exactly they do as a professional.

I believe the public relations field is full of gray areas and over laps with many jobs. However, no matter where you work there will be the same underlying duties. According to the Public Relations Society of America in their articular titled, “About Public Relations,” the main duty of public relations is to analyzing the public’s view of the company, issues that may impact the company for good or bad, crisis communication, manage the reputation of the company, preforming research on the audience and how to reach them, planning and implementing campaigns, setting goals, planning, budgeting, and overseeing content used to gain customer engagement and turn into leads. I use to think advertising and public relations were pretty much the same thing but in the last 7 day’s I have learned how different they are. Between the articles I have read preparing to write this along with what I have learned in class, my view of public relations has changed directly. I still plan on finishing my major with the empathizes in advertising, but my interest in public relations has gone up a lot. I want to be the best employee possible so what ever will expand my skill I will happily learn.

Black, C. (2002). The PR Practitioner’s Desktop Guide. EBCOhost. 7-18

About Public Relations. (n.d) Public Relations Society of America. retrieved from: https://www.prsa.org/about/all-about-pr

Wynne, R. ( Jan 21, 2016). Five Things Everyone Should Know About Public Relations. Forbes. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwynne/2016/01/21/five-things-everyone-should-know-about-public-relations/#25632f262a2c

Future and Current Effects of Technology on Advertisement and Public Relations Careers

Growing from a kid into a young adult I have been able to see lots of changes in technology and the way it is used. I remember seeing my parents flip phone, my dad getting his high-tech Blackberry, and then the iphone that put that cool Blackberry to shame.  As a kid I was only interested in video games as they were the only real technology that I used. As I got older, my interest in computer and phones started to grow as I needed these things for school and to live the adult life that I was starting. However, even as I get older my interest in video games is still there. I enjoy reading about new ones coming out and playing the ones I have.  As I grow older though, I am starting to pay attention to how technology affects the world of advertisement and public relations as soon it will affect me on a daily bias.

          Technology has a big effect on business. It allows people to always stay in contact even if they are on the other side of the world. You can quickly get updates from your boss even seconds before a meeting. I think the most influential technological advancement to the advertising and public relations career would be the smartphone. It allows people to instantly contact anyone they need along while also having unlimited information in their pocket. Companies can also share important documents with their employees within seconds no matter where they are. This keeps them up to date to the nearest second with the company’s goals and budgets. There has also been a new trend in technology for companies. This new trend is the smart watch, and it is flourishing. The smart watch allows employees to check what is going on without having to take out their phone. This looks more professional and is still able to let people get the information they need.

          When I graduate and can land a full-time job in the advertisement and public relations job community, I hope to be able to get lucky and have an employer who supplies me with a smart watch and the newest type of smartphone. I do not currently own a smartwatch, but I think they make someone look more elite in a business atmosphere. I currently have a smartphone, and I could not love it any more. I do hope that my employer will also give me a business phone, not having to pay for a phone would be awesome.

          I feel that by the time I make it into the workforce the technology for my degree will be even more advanced than it is now. Somehow the phones will be even better then they are now, and the smart watches will have a few years to get more perfected as well. There might be smart glasses, kind of like the google glasses but better. Maybe you could facetime on them and be able to see live images that your boss is showing you from back at the office, or even as his own house. This would force a lot more people to wear glasses, but I already do so I wouldn’t mind.

Image result for smartphones and smartwatches
Guilherme Neto from Smartwatch Gaming Takes Off 1018, photo of different technology, Finance News, accessed 25 January 2019

          The opportunities for the future of advancements for technology in the advertisement and public relationship career are endless. By the time I get my career job it will be totally different then the way it is now, and throughout my career there will be too many advancements to count. However, I think I will forever have my personal interests in the more fun side of technology, like video games. Technology is a major part of all Americans daily lives and will continue this way for the rest of our lives.

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