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In the work of public relations there are some basic areas in which a practitioner should be involved in an organization’s community relationship. Some of these areas include: representing an organization in different volunteer activities and getting employees to do likewise. Also be sure to issue news that is of interest to the your audience and provide special interest leaders with information on the issues of your campaign.
Also be sure to manage the contributions. If you’re a business, donate responsibly, if a nonprofit, raise funds appropriately. Remember to counsel the company’s management on how to responsibly manage their employees. Planning and helping to implement social events is another important area to take part in. A practitioner should also serve as a mediator for local government, social problems, and celebrations. It is also important to prepare ads and position papers for your publics.
PR is becoming less concerned with routine and more with the developing tactics for social media.

Who doesn’t love pie? It’s American and sweet and can cure your troubles on a really bad day. It’s really easy to say you love that kind of pie, but there is something else that is pretty sweet that can help us as practitioners. The letters PIE are a good way to remember some basis steps to planning a campaign.

“P” is for Planning. The first stage to any campaign should be planning. You must research your clients as well as your public to plan how you want to develop your campaign. In this stage you will also develop goals, objectives, themes, and key messages. You will also develop a strategies and channels for your campaign.

“I” is for Implementation. The implementation stage of the campaign is made up of two sections: tactics and logistics. Your tactics will help you to make a list of all the ideas for communicating through various channels. The tactics are more specific and should written out like instructions for the plan. The logistics section looks at how the tactics will be executed. This includes staffing needs, budgeting, and a calendar with a timetable for planning events.

Last, “E” is for EvaluationOne of the most important parts of the campaign and often the most neglected is the evaluation stage. There are several ways to evaluate your campaign, but I’m just going to mention two. First there is the Ongoing evaluation referring to the methods of evaluation that can be performed during the campaign. These evaluations are a way to “tighten the screws” of the campaign. The second way to evaluate a campaign is done as a Summative evaluation. This evaluation is done immediately after a campaign is over. The campaign is never really over until your results have been evaluated.

Lets talk about how to handle a crisis that comes out of nowhere.
In 2002, a tragedy where six students from Bowling Green State University were killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer on the way home from their spring break trip to Panama City, Florida. The University did a great job handling the crisis. In the implementation of their crisis the Marketing and Communication department took control. They let everyone know what their role should be for handling the crisis. They also addresses the needs of the students who would be directly impacted by the tragedy. They arranged counselors and the campus ministry to be available to grieving students. They also dealt with the media in the best way. They notified the media and kept them satisfied with the news at their dispense. The university served as the number one news source for the media. Once the media began swarming the campus to get insider interviews the Marketing and Communications department helped keep the reporters away from students who did not wish to speak about it, but they also set up meetings with students who did wish to comment causing all parties involved to feel content. Last, the university hosted two memorial services for the students as well as set up a memorial fund in their honor. This crisis management was about as successful as it gets.
In the more recent case of the Virginia Tech shootings, the crisis was rapidly a hot topic of conversation that snowballed out of control. At the time of the crisis there was no specific source of information so speculation consumed the media. The university did a poor job of being the only source of information. Now however the university is doing a great job with moving on. The building where the tragedy occurred was revamped to look new and the classes where students were shot were closed and will no longer be used for classes. They have also tightened security measure to ensure that something like this will hopefully never occur again. These two cases are both extremely tragic, but the reason that Bowling Green State University came out more successful was that they controlled the media from the very beginning.
These two examples of crisis are very similar in problem, but their plans for crisis management are far similar. The best thing you can do in the event of a crisis is to control the information, and maintain positive relations with all parties involved.

The nature of public relations is that it is the core of all relationship transactions in any campaign. One of the most important relationships is the one with the media. Media relations is an important part of PR because it is one of the best ways to build effective relationships and get your messages to your publics.

Some things to remember regarding the media. First, the media’s influence over the public is cumulative and long-term. For example, When you think about the war in Iraq, what do you feel. Certain influences of the media has most likely helped you gather your opinions, even though few of us have ever served in Iraq. The media is a powerful vessel of influence that can both hinder or help your message. Now I’m not supporting the “Magic Bullet Theory” and suggesting that people can’t think for themselves, however I do understand that people would rather believe what they are told before they would have no opinion about a subject.

The next point is that the media’s job is to serve as a source for information. It is theoretically created as a non-bias source of information. Journalists are responsible for the first step in getting a message out. In order for the public to make a decision about how a message they must first hear it. This power over the message is what is known as the “agenda-setting” role of the media.

Last, we must all know by now that we live in a world where the public would rather see “Gladiator” over “Bambi.” This is the nature of the media. What seems to draw the most attention is tragedy. Research has shown that publics would rather tune into hear about bad news instead of good news. This is why our message can be hard to sell. We are always competing with freeway accidents, school shootings and political scandals. Good news is no longer considered a good story. PR practitioners must develop relationships with the media if we want to stand a chance to have our news reported.

Any time you are not prepared for a crisis you are at risk. Crisis management is one of the most neglected plans in organizations today. This public relations practice is vital to all organizations. The term crisis management is not about response, but about preparation. In order to prepare for a crisis a practitioner must understand the environment of the crisis, the inner-culture of the organization, and a complete understanding of human nature. The combination of these three things will help a practitioner to react when a crisis does finally occur.

Human nature suggests that people are irrational and unpredictable when they are subjected to emotional stress. They turn primal and survival of the fittest takes over. You can bet when people are feeling vulnerable, self-preservation is what controls their emotions and actions.

There are two types of crisis: sudden crisis that come without any warning, and smoldering crisis which is not seen as a problem until it goes public and generates bad media coverage. These are usually the fault of management that has not taken action when a problem has been brought to their attention. These problems will grow into a crisis if they are not extinguished early. It is rare that an organization will encounter a sudden crisis. The majority are smoldering crisis.

When preparing for a crisis always remember to anticipate the unexpected. Also have a crisis plan written out for employees to have in the event of a crisis. Another good idea is to have a point man that serves as a spokesperson in the case of a crisis. They should be informed and educated about the on goings of crisis management.

Lets talk about consumer relations. One of my teachers once told me that the three most important publics are customers, customers, and customers. Now I know that this sounds a bit like marketing rather than public relations, but lets not forget that our goal is to see our client or organization succeed. Reputation is key to any campaign, but beyond that lets not forget it is the customers that pay the bills.

Although marketing and public relations share some of the same concepts, such as initial research and targeting publics; public relations stands out because it is concerned about both internal and external publics. Public relations cares about those publics that are noncustomers as well as the atmosphere in which their organization operates. Public relations doesn’t just focus on “consumer behavior” (quantitative statistics), but rather it directs its attention to the practices of human nature and what makes people act the way they do. PR practitioners also work to change public opinion in other areas than products.

So what am I saying, is public relations and marketing in a struggle over which is more important? Of course not, because they have different functions. I just wanted to stress that in the case of public relations we must focus on multiple publics. We must help motivate purchases without being service specific. We must also create a comfortable environment for organizations to sell products and services.

Public relations and marketing are both involved in making sales. However, while marketing is totally involved in selling, it is the role of public relations to go beyond sales to secure the relationships between their client, the organization and all of the other stakeholders involved.

As a rookie practitioner I was wondering if there is any advantage to working with freelance writers. These freelancers are hired to write, take photography, and work as a graphic designer. I understand the help that a freelance writer could potentially be, but doesn’t it take away from the relationships we are trying to create with our media outlets as well as our publics.

What good does it do to show up for a campaign and when asked about our ideas we say, “I know, lets hire out someone to do our work for us so that we can become impersonal to our publics.” Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no value in hiring a freelance writer to help pick up any slack, or even do some work that a team may not be equip to do.

All I am trying to say is that as practitioners we must always remember the importance of personal relations. The key is to not only establish good report with clients and publics, but to keep it and build it up so that you become a beacon of trust and remain credible to everyone.

I’m sure we all know that a huge part of public relations is establishing a credible reputation. One of the best ways to improve a company or organization’s reputation is for them to become involved in community activities and helping to meet the needs of others. Here are a few ways to get involved: you could give a financial contribution directly to a charity, you could also sponsor events and volunteer to help organize them. You might even provide some sort of entertainment for any special event that may be going on.

Community involvement is much more necessary today than in the past because in the digital age we live in a secluded society that does not encourage relationships with other people. Let me ask, do you know your neighbors? How about your postman or the garbage collectors. Years ago I’m sure the answer would be much different than today.

Robert Dilenschneider, a PR expert is says, “people measure a company’s ethical performance by comparing what it says to what it does.” I find this to be very insightful. We can’t just understand the importance of social responsibility and then just sit on our hands. We must take the initiative to be proactive in generating the positive reputation we want to establish.

This partnership between profit-yielding companies and nonprofit organizations, although a recent concept has intrinsic value that gives a company an advantage over its competitors. The relationships that you establish with your community will serve to create a beautiful reputation for your company or organization.

Lets talk about standards. What is it that passes for news these days? We know about news values, which factors help to influence the degree an audience will find a story compelling. These factors include: timeliness, consequence, proximity, and prominence. We also know what about news interests; what attracts the attention of the audience. These include stories of self-interest, conflict, humor, and novelty.

But are these the guidelines we are using? Do we give any consideration to what we write s news anymore, or is it what ever will fill white space and sell publications and papers. How are we determining the merit of quality?

My mother used to tell me “No news is good news,” and I have to say I believe she is right. Why should we concern ourselves with the garbage of gossip and filth. Why should Paris Hilton make to front page headline and get priority coverage on CNN? Is the news industry today so lazy that they wont work to find some good news about something credible, or is it they let themselves be controlled by what they believe the public wants.

The solution seems easy to me. I believe that if the reporting would begin to focus on positive news instead of drinking from the pond of cynicism, that perhaps the public would regain an interest in substance instead of the newest celebrity dish.

Lets talk about conflicts of interest. What is the ethical stance for giving and receiving gifts between a PR practitioner and a journalist, or any other vendor? Is it always wrong? I mean, it seems to me that the importance of building relationships with the media has been stressed throughout my education. But, is it unethical to give or receive a friendly gesture from someone you have built a relationship with?

Where is the boundary for this issue? Well the issue doesn’t seem to be intent, because in the world of public relations, perception is reality. And if for any reason someone perceives you as a palm-greaser, that’s what you have become. My advice maintain your relationships on a professional level. This will keep any questions about your ethics to a minimum.

Now, I understand that everything is not always black and white in our world. Even Edward Bernays (the father of PR), who led the way for ethical practices in PR, helped to create a campaign for the tobacco companies to get people to start smoking. Your moral compass may sometimes be a bit clouded by your expectations to perform. But I would encourage you to stand firm in your convictions and allow yourself to maintain a level of honesty and truth as you have that obligation to your public.

Remember that the public is already a skeptical crowd, allowing yourself to do anything that questions your ethics is not acceptable. I read a startling statistic that only 31% of practicing PR professionals feel as though their ethical boundaries had been defined. If your ever in doubt about what to do, remember, you have an obligation to protect the reputation of our profession as well as your own reputation as a practitioner.