When I arrived in London to study PR I had this idea of what PR was, what I like to refer to as my PR bubble. I call it that because not far into my studies at Westminster that bubble got popped. It got popped because I realized that there was so much more to the industry than what most people that do not study it believe. I know it's said that the best teacher in life is experience but in this case I am going to make an exception and say in PR while experience is great a taught background is fantastic and in my opinion necessary. I know throughout this year I have heard professionals working in the field say over and over again "I didn't come from a PR background, I just ended up here." While that's great because then the industry gets a very wide range of talents that are brought to the table I have to still stick to my guns and say learning it for me was needed.
Between both my semesters at Westminster I have learned so much about PR and what it comprises of, this journey has made me realize my dislikes and interests within the industry and has given me an open view of the route I would like to take within the field.
I have has memorable teaching moments and I hope they continue.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
PR Trends
The public relations industry is one that unlike and like other industries, always changing with the times, rapidly and so to say always be on top of everything. The industry has so many influencers but the most importantly being its public and audience. So to stay on top and to have fore sight with your audience being able to read, identify and foresee trends both within the industry and out is a fundamental skill that all PR practitioners have to possess. Here is link to a great article by the PRSA highlighting the issue titled 11 public relations trends, Enjoy.
Political Communication vs. Government PR
What is political communication and what is government PR? if you asked me that question before our lecture with Pam Williams I would have probably told you they were one in the same. But here are some fundamental differences in the both:
Political Communication
Political party
Influences voters
Political choice (democracy)
Funded through party donations
Partisan, persuasive
Party faithful
A great example of political communication and one that revolutionized political communications forever was the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. If there was ever a formula that could be given to potential candidates President Barack Obama got it right and perfected it with his campaign, YES WE CAN!
While Government PR is:
Government = party in power
Influences citizens
Rights and responsibilities
Funded by taxpayer
Inclusive, informative, non partisan
Civil servants
So pretty much it's the before and after, political communication involves campaigning, everything that a potential candidate does or his/her party before the candidate is elected or prior to the elections while government communication is all about the media management, image management, internal communications and information management.
As President Barack Obama puts his bid in for the 2012 elections I will definitely be watching to see how he goes about it the second time around.
Political Communication
Political party
Influences voters
Political choice (democracy)
Funded through party donations
Partisan, persuasive
Party faithful
A great example of political communication and one that revolutionized political communications forever was the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. If there was ever a formula that could be given to potential candidates President Barack Obama got it right and perfected it with his campaign, YES WE CAN!
While Government PR is:
Government = party in power
Influences citizens
Rights and responsibilities
Funded by taxpayer
Inclusive, informative, non partisan
Civil servants
So pretty much it's the before and after, political communication involves campaigning, everything that a potential candidate does or his/her party before the candidate is elected or prior to the elections while government communication is all about the media management, image management, internal communications and information management.
As President Barack Obama puts his bid in for the 2012 elections I will definitely be watching to see how he goes about it the second time around.
My viral video campaign
In my new and social media class we were given the task of putting together a viral media campaign. The assignment was to create a campaign and make a video about it. I decided to do my fictional campaign on Glo mobile, West Africa's biggest mobile provider launching special low-cost international calling to West Africa from the UK. To launch the service and creat awareness a concert sponsored by Glo starring some of Nigeria's hottest artists such as MI and Jesse Jagz will be held at the O2 arena in London. I called the campaign "Reach your World" modeled after Glo mobiles real slogan "Rule your World."
While in Lagos I was able to track down Jesse and being the great sport that he is, he agreed to help me out with my project. Here is my finished project hope you like it.
While in Lagos I was able to track down Jesse and being the great sport that he is, he agreed to help me out with my project. Here is my finished project hope you like it.
CSR and Public Relations
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the commitment displayed by organizations and corporations to contribute to the economic and social development of their local communities and society at large. It is also a method, which corporate organizations carry out actions that benefit the society without revenue being the driving force and with the ultimate goal of making a positive impact on society. It is set of standards in which an organization or corporation takes on in order to make its impact on society.
According to Edelman "a company’s corporate social responsibility, citizenship and sustainability strategy should go beyond traditional reputation considerations and be directly related to its business continuity, employee morale and market expansion. According to the 2010 Edelman goodpurpose® study, eighty-six percent of citizens globally believe that business needs to place at least equal weight on society’s interests as on those of business."
So why does CSR matter to PR I like to use this analogy to break down the relationship with the two. Based on a study by the work foundation 4 out of 5 companies have made their CSR the responsibility of their PR departments so my take is this simple. If you have a good story to tell which theses companies do because of what they are doing with their CSR practices then let people know, shout it out to the world and that is where PR comes into it.
The topic of CSR is being discussed more and more frequently and on a global level, undeveloped countries are now beginning to mandate CSR as part of any good ethical business practice. I will be studying this further because I have chosen to write my dissertation in Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria. I am interested to know what the perception and practice of CSR is in Nigeria.
While there are a few models on CSR I am also very interested to know through my research what would be the best model to fit a place like Nigeria.
According to Edelman "a company’s corporate social responsibility, citizenship and sustainability strategy should go beyond traditional reputation considerations and be directly related to its business continuity, employee morale and market expansion. According to the 2010 Edelman goodpurpose® study, eighty-six percent of citizens globally believe that business needs to place at least equal weight on society’s interests as on those of business."
So why does CSR matter to PR I like to use this analogy to break down the relationship with the two. Based on a study by the work foundation 4 out of 5 companies have made their CSR the responsibility of their PR departments so my take is this simple. If you have a good story to tell which theses companies do because of what they are doing with their CSR practices then let people know, shout it out to the world and that is where PR comes into it.
The topic of CSR is being discussed more and more frequently and on a global level, undeveloped countries are now beginning to mandate CSR as part of any good ethical business practice. I will be studying this further because I have chosen to write my dissertation in Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria. I am interested to know what the perception and practice of CSR is in Nigeria.
While there are a few models on CSR I am also very interested to know through my research what would be the best model to fit a place like Nigeria.
Social Marketing
Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen define social marketing as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society."
Pretty much the point of social marketing is behaviour change, action actually doing something about a social issue. When Sean Kidney gave a presentation on social marketing he used a very effective example to bring the point across. He spoke about going green and how people have physically taken proactive actions towards going green such as changing to energy efficient light bulbs to recycling and using hybrid cars.
The most interesting part of his presentation to me was wen he asked us if we had been part of any social marketing campaigns or if we could think of any and all of a sudden being someone that knew and still knows very little about social marketing I realized it was all around me. Anything that is a social issue and has a campaign calling for action is a social marketing. AIDS campaigns, Condom campaigns, Don't Drink and Drive campaigns, Go Green campaigns these are all social issues that we are all a part of.
Pretty much the point of social marketing is behaviour change, action actually doing something about a social issue. When Sean Kidney gave a presentation on social marketing he used a very effective example to bring the point across. He spoke about going green and how people have physically taken proactive actions towards going green such as changing to energy efficient light bulbs to recycling and using hybrid cars.
The most interesting part of his presentation to me was wen he asked us if we had been part of any social marketing campaigns or if we could think of any and all of a sudden being someone that knew and still knows very little about social marketing I realized it was all around me. Anything that is a social issue and has a campaign calling for action is a social marketing. AIDS campaigns, Condom campaigns, Don't Drink and Drive campaigns, Go Green campaigns these are all social issues that we are all a part of.
Monitoring Social Media
A great phenomenon sweeping almost every industry including the PR industry is social media. While new and social media campaigns have definitely been on the rise what a lot of people don't know is how to measure and monitor the success of a social media campaign. Earlier during the semester I had to monitor an organization or company.
While doing that assignment I really looked into what it takes to measure a successful social media campaign and the tools used to measure activity. While most people will look into simple things such as retweets on twitter and likes on Facebook there is so much more. Sites that have been created to measure activity such as:
Tweetfeel
RSS feeds
Tweetstats
Twitter Sentiment
Retweet Rank
Goggle Alerts
And many more one being social mention, its a site that allows you to know what is being said about you and its sources and statistics. The ultimate point is this social media campaigning and monitoring looks and things such as engagement and resignation with its audiences
Here is a really cool video by Laura Roeder about social mention.
While doing that assignment I really looked into what it takes to measure a successful social media campaign and the tools used to measure activity. While most people will look into simple things such as retweets on twitter and likes on Facebook there is so much more. Sites that have been created to measure activity such as:
Tweetfeel
RSS feeds
Tweetstats
Twitter Sentiment
Retweet Rank
Goggle Alerts
And many more one being social mention, its a site that allows you to know what is being said about you and its sources and statistics. The ultimate point is this social media campaigning and monitoring looks and things such as engagement and resignation with its audiences
Here is a really cool video by Laura Roeder about social mention.
Spin and Campbell
According to Wikipedia Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and it publics.
However the practice of public relations has often been associated or looked at as spinning, as a matter of fact the father of PR Edward Barneys has been referred to as "the father of spin." When people think about PR and spin it always comes down to PR being all about a certain agenda and promoting that particular agenda at all costs even if it means spinning it a little or a lot. The world spinning insinuates making the information work in your favor.
People like Alastair Campbell former press secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair has done nothing but "add fuel to the fire" about PR being nothing but spin. Campbell was referred to as a spin doctor and created more controversy during his time as chief press officer. In a video "News No. 10" we watched in class we saw Campbell doing what he did best being a powerful press officer and kept control of the news going in and out of his administration.
I think more than spin Campbell did a great job at controlling what the media knew and what media outlets knew what. Even though he was not liked by many and accused by many of being manipulative any good PR person for any organization will like to have and keep control because by keeping control of what comes in and out you are always on top of everything. However Campbell maybe took that a little far because there is a fine line between control and SPIN!
Here is a Video of Campbell on Newsnight
However the practice of public relations has often been associated or looked at as spinning, as a matter of fact the father of PR Edward Barneys has been referred to as "the father of spin." When people think about PR and spin it always comes down to PR being all about a certain agenda and promoting that particular agenda at all costs even if it means spinning it a little or a lot. The world spinning insinuates making the information work in your favor.
People like Alastair Campbell former press secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair has done nothing but "add fuel to the fire" about PR being nothing but spin. Campbell was referred to as a spin doctor and created more controversy during his time as chief press officer. In a video "News No. 10" we watched in class we saw Campbell doing what he did best being a powerful press officer and kept control of the news going in and out of his administration.
I think more than spin Campbell did a great job at controlling what the media knew and what media outlets knew what. Even though he was not liked by many and accused by many of being manipulative any good PR person for any organization will like to have and keep control because by keeping control of what comes in and out you are always on top of everything. However Campbell maybe took that a little far because there is a fine line between control and SPIN!
Here is a Video of Campbell on Newsnight
Activism and PR
So today the very important topic of activism and PR was discussed using a very effective example the documentary "Super Size Me." In 2004 the documentary film both directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he eats only McDonald's food. The documentary was sparked on the back of two teenage girls who sued the fast food giants and blamed them for their obesity. So Spurlock went a little deeper into the fast food giant to see how unhealthy it was by using himself as a guinea pig.
So how does this relate to PR? In this case Spurlock represents many many NGO's such as Greenpeace and Save the Children. NGO's need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use PR campaigns to raise funds and use standard lobbying techniques in regards to government.
Many NGO's use different tactics to protest and get their points or word out using PR as the appropriate tool or avenue to get their point across. For years NGO's such as PETA has staged countless PR stunts againts celebrities to support their cause and have used many celebrities to support their cause. But what Spurlock did was fascinating by using himself as the experiment and showing his audience the response that he got from the McDonald's corporation by creating this documentary was pure genius. At the end of the day what any NGO would like to accomplish is change or rather action that will result in change or action and Spurlock hit it spot on. As a result McDonald's removed and stopped offering the "super size" size from it's menu and actively made healthier options available on its menu.
Here is the opening of the documentary:
So how does this relate to PR? In this case Spurlock represents many many NGO's such as Greenpeace and Save the Children. NGO's need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use PR campaigns to raise funds and use standard lobbying techniques in regards to government.
Many NGO's use different tactics to protest and get their points or word out using PR as the appropriate tool or avenue to get their point across. For years NGO's such as PETA has staged countless PR stunts againts celebrities to support their cause and have used many celebrities to support their cause. But what Spurlock did was fascinating by using himself as the experiment and showing his audience the response that he got from the McDonald's corporation by creating this documentary was pure genius. At the end of the day what any NGO would like to accomplish is change or rather action that will result in change or action and Spurlock hit it spot on. As a result McDonald's removed and stopped offering the "super size" size from it's menu and actively made healthier options available on its menu.
Here is the opening of the documentary:
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Crisis Management and PR
The nature of crisis management in PR is made up if two words danger and opportunity meaning that an organization needs to be able to spot a crisis when an issue arises that has the risk or tendency to become dangerous and cause a potential issue for the organization.
With organizations such as BP and Toyota to show us what not to do by either keeping quiet like the case of BP, and allowing people to come to their own conclusions and run with them and in the age of social media it barely took days for Facebook pages asking people to boycott BP began to pop up. To date there are more than 20 boycott BP pages on Facebook with the biggest having more than 815,000 members. Or Toyota who sat back and waited and gave every other reason in the world for the issues their cars were having.
On the other hand we have other companies who have given great examples of crises management and have even avoided the crisis completely by acting as fast as possible case in point Johnson & Johnson and their Tylenol crises. In 1982 Tylenol was tampered with. Someone had been placing cyanide pills inside of Tylenol bottles, and it was killing people. Johnson & Johnson reacted quickly and pulled their product off the selves. Instead of suffering long-term damage to their reputation, Tylenol regained consumer confidence quickly because their crisis management plan told them to act in the interest of the consumers.
Every corporation needs to have a crisis management plan and its even more important now than ever because the consumers have platforms now that are more powerful than ever so poorly handled crisis management isn't a risk that organizations can afford anymore especially when their reputations are on the line.
With organizations such as BP and Toyota to show us what not to do by either keeping quiet like the case of BP, and allowing people to come to their own conclusions and run with them and in the age of social media it barely took days for Facebook pages asking people to boycott BP began to pop up. To date there are more than 20 boycott BP pages on Facebook with the biggest having more than 815,000 members. Or Toyota who sat back and waited and gave every other reason in the world for the issues their cars were having.
On the other hand we have other companies who have given great examples of crises management and have even avoided the crisis completely by acting as fast as possible case in point Johnson & Johnson and their Tylenol crises. In 1982 Tylenol was tampered with. Someone had been placing cyanide pills inside of Tylenol bottles, and it was killing people. Johnson & Johnson reacted quickly and pulled their product off the selves. Instead of suffering long-term damage to their reputation, Tylenol regained consumer confidence quickly because their crisis management plan told them to act in the interest of the consumers.
Every corporation needs to have a crisis management plan and its even more important now than ever because the consumers have platforms now that are more powerful than ever so poorly handled crisis management isn't a risk that organizations can afford anymore especially when their reputations are on the line.
How Important is Social Media?????
While we all know what a phenomenon Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs and most other social media sites have become the idea of New and Social Media as a course was quite weird for me. So as a student my natural reaction was to look into how these sites will impact and affect me going into the PR industry.
So as the popularity of social media grows more and more organizations and corporations have began to utilize it more and more to reach their public and establish more of a conversation with their audience or public. Recent studies have shown that if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world with more than 500 million users and more than half of its users logging in every day Facebook has become a phenomenon and has shot social media into the forefront of the PR industry.
So how important in social media? with companies and corporations pumping money into its new media budgets for obvious reasons such as direct, engaging conversation with its audience. Social media I believe is very important to any corporation or organization right now that wants or needs to have a presence or resonate with its public and audience. The days of one way information communication are over.
So as the popularity of social media grows more and more organizations and corporations have began to utilize it more and more to reach their public and establish more of a conversation with their audience or public. Recent studies have shown that if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world with more than 500 million users and more than half of its users logging in every day Facebook has become a phenomenon and has shot social media into the forefront of the PR industry.
So how important in social media? with companies and corporations pumping money into its new media budgets for obvious reasons such as direct, engaging conversation with its audience. Social media I believe is very important to any corporation or organization right now that wants or needs to have a presence or resonate with its public and audience. The days of one way information communication are over.
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