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.
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