A How To Piece: Communications Plan

A great way to figure out what to do in any situation is to have a communications plan. Below is an example based from "Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics." This example doesn’t use calendar or budget, but some situations may involve those components as well. In the end, there is also an evaluation that measures the success of your objectives.



SITUATION

The Communications Director for PRSA is presented with a problem; the PR profession lacks credibility in the United States. As the director, he/she must come up with a plan to generate more credibility.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives are:

• To create awareness about the PR profession
• To give credibility to PR professionals.

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Businesses with Public Relations positions
• Universities (teaching future generations the importance)

STRATEGIES

• Develop many story angles for broad range of media
• Generate event ideas
• Involve universities from all over the U.S.
• Involve businesses from all over the U.S.
• Develop main points to put into the newsletters and public service announcements

TACTICS

• Provide print and broadcast media with media kits (which include fact sheets and news releases)
• Make public service announcements on the importance of Public Relations
• Host special events (networking, invite businesses: local and national, tell universities about the events)
• Send out newsletters
• Have biannual reports (to show the increase in awareness and credibility, or progress)

For this example, the objectives are to create awareness and credibility for the PR profession. These are very open objectives, and therefore must have strong strategies and tactics to fulfill these objectives.

The strategies listed above lead to the tactics needed to fulfill the objectives. Above all, getting word out about PR professionals is what will help the objectives succeed.

The PR tactics used are media kits, public service announcements, special events, newsletters and biannual reports.

By sending media kits to print and broadcast stations, they can take the main points to tell audiences around the world. Making a public service announcement can also help, because news stations can play them constantly.

Networking events are a more personal way of getting the word out. Media kits, public service announcements and newsletters are just information, whereas events are a way to make face-to-face meetings with businesses and university faculty. These businesses are important in knowing about the PR profession because they more than likely have positions available for PR and should know the importance of credibility of the profession. University faculty are important because these are the individuals who teach our future PR professionals. If they teach them the importance now, then those individuals can spread the word and it may become more well known.

I chose these tactics because I believe these are strongest to help get the word out. They all tie together and feed off of each other in helping get word out.

Accreditation: To Be or Not To Be

PRSA accreditation is not well known to many businesses. But why?

Having PRSA Accreditation, or Accreditation in Public Relations (APR), means simply that you are committed to public relations and the ethical practice of public relations. It shows that you have a broad knowledge, strategic perspective, and sound professional judgment. If you are accredited, you are bound by strict ethical guidelines, have demonstrated your desire to succeed and commitment to enhancing the profession, demonstrated skills and abilities necessary in today’s public relations executive or manager, and have successfully completed a challenging review and examination process. More information on APR can be found at the PRSA website.

This accreditation can easily put you above another PR practitioner at a job interview. However, if those managers and business owners don’t know about APR what is the point in paying hundreds to be accredited? On the other hand, shouldn’t a business know about APR if they have that position available? Shouldn’t they want their employees to be as ethical as possible? PRSA is not who should be held completely accountable. The businesses should be the ones to do their research. If they have an open position, they should know all about that position, including accreditations.

A few ways PRSA can help, however, is by getting the word out, posting constant reminders or blogs on their accreditation, and possibly even having representatives go to businesses to teach managers and business owners about APR and the importance of APR. If business owners and managers know more about it, they will look for it when doing interviews and in turn more PR practitioners will want to be APR certified.

Their website is fairly well known. Many PR practitioners constantly go to their website. If PRSA were to put up constant reminders about APR and the importance of APR, many of those practitioners will see that and possibly decide to become certified or even spread the word and tell co-workers about becoming certified. Through their website, they could even start a blog specifically for enlightening practitioners about APR and having practitioners tell their stories of how being certified helped them get their jobs. Since blogs are becoming more and more popular, this would easily sell the idea to many PR professionals.

Additional to spreading the word, PRSA should hold seminars or go to businesses to help spread the word. This method can hold many options.

The first is having open seminars for businesses to voluntarily learn about APR accreditation and why having employees with this certification is important. The downside to this is that not all business owners or managers will voluntarily go to these programs.

Another option is having a PRSA representative go to businesses to teach them the value of the certification. This is a somewhat better option because the owners and managers will not have to physically take time to go to a seminar; the seminar will come to them.

Finally, the businesses that have PRSA representatives already working with them should teach them about the APR certification. PRSA cannot be held accountable for teaching all businesses around the world. If practitioners help spread the word, eventually more and more people will know and want to be certified.

If PRSA and the practitioners who follow them help get word out to businesses, eventually being certified will be something that most businesses will be looking for when doing interviews. This will help keep the profession true and ethical.

5 Most Essential Skills/Traits a PR Practitioner Must Have

There are five simple skills and or traits that all public relations practitioners must have. All are proven to be vital to any PR practitioner. Click on each skill, and the link will take you to CareerBuilder, Indeed and other job descriptions with most having all five of the above skills as requirements.

1.Communication Skills (Written and Verbal)
2. Strong Inter-personal Skills (working in teams)
3. Able to multi-task (deadlines, multiple projects simultaneously)
4. Proficient knowledge with social media (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, etc.)
5. Able to excel in a fast paced environment


1. Communication Skills (Written and Verbal)

The majority of your job will most likely rely on your communication skills.

The verbal skills are what people will first notice upon meeting you. If you have great verbal communication skills, the client is more likely to work with you than someone or some other company with less than perfect communication skills. These communication skills tie all of your other skills together and ultimately decide the outcome of a job.

Written communication skills are just as important. If there is no chance of meeting with a client face to face, your resume or portfolio will be what sells you. If you write at the level of a second grader, then you will more than likely not get the job.

2. Strong Inter-personal skills

Working in team environments or just with other people can play a big role in any Public Relations job. For example, if you are an event planner you must be able to work with others to get the function or event done on time and exactly as the client wants it to be. If working as a as a team is a problem, the event will never work.

3. Able to multi-task

If you are only able to do one thing at a time, nothing will ever get done on time! Sometimes there will be 3, 4, 5 or more events or press releases that you need to be sent out or planned by 5 p.m.; it is 1p.m.! You need to be able to multi-task and quickly but correctly get each job done within the deadline.

4. Proficient knowledge with social media (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, etc.)

Knowing and keeping up with technology can be vital to a company’s existence. This is a great way to keep in contact and keep updated with clients and potential clients. Technology is constantly changing, if you don’t keep up then you will be left behind the other individuals and company’s that are not keeping up. Direct feedback also plays a huge role in social media. Prior to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and others, individuals and company's sent out press releases and got feedback via email or mail. Through Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, feedback is instant and on the same page as your information.


5. Able to excel in a fast paced environment

You should always have room to grow. If you cant keep up, then more than likely you will not grow in that job.




This YouTube video lists some of the above requirements (within the first 35 seconds of the video). He explains that communication skills are most important to being successful in PR, which I noted above.