To give you a better understanding of public relations, we asked four PR and communications students to tell you a little bit about their PR internships and placements. Besides some insights into the daily life of PR agencies and PR in-house departements, they also have some advice for PR beginners!
As all of them are living in different places at the moment, they recorded themselves with their webcams - Thank you again, girls! :)
One of the girls, Christina, is living in Austria and therefore talking in German - So switch the subtitles on ;) They are not only available in English, but as usual also in French, Chinese and German.
Lobbying tends to always be associated with men/women in suits whispering in dark corners, influencing the powerful and making a lot of money as these cartoons might suggest...
Yet, lobbying has more to it than that, and people often have a lot of misconceptions about what lobbying actually is.
Have you ever demonstrated for a cause or signed a petition? Well, those things are also called 'lobbying'.
But we explain better in the two videos below - enjoy! Any questions, leave us a comment :)
Coming next: A day in the life of a PR practitioner!
PR practitioners have a range of different tactics at their disposition as we explained in one of our previous blog post. Yet, we thought it would be a good idea to expand on some of them such as Crisis Communication.
Crisis communication is a very important area of public relations, and organisations often don't recognise its vital value and its potential.
Here is our '60 seconds' video explaining Crisis Communication :)
The video below is a more humorous approach to Crisis Communication and what NOT to do using the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 as an example - enjoy!
Our next videos will cover a day in the life of a PR pro and lobbying.
"Great storytelling is the backbone of great PR" - Bruce McLachlan, Fever PR
We had a fantastic guest lecture today on 'Storytelling and PR' from Fever PR, and we thought it would very useful to share our notes with you as well as a couple of case-studies, so here we go!
The year of 2013 is going to be all about storytelling. Europe and the UK are about to enter a triple dip recession and consumer spending is going to fall. Consequently, it's going to be that little bit harder for brands to get people to buy their products.
Enters storytelling!
Storytelling is all about helping consumers escape the grim reality. A PR story has to be authentic, trustworthy, honest and truthful BUT also blur the line between 'fact' and 'fiction' to excite and entertain your consumers.
Creative and successful storytelling includes:
irony
self-mythology
playing games with your audience
sparking curiosity
not revealing the whole story up front
getting others to share the story
Here are some really cool case-studies of great storytelling that we hope you'll enjoy!
It is widely agreed
among PR practitioners that creativity is one crucial factor determining
the effectiveness of an PR campaign. Creative PR tactics can set the news
agenda and generate massive coverage for organizations. Lately, a collective
behavior has raised the attention of PR practitioners.
First appeared in
America 2001, flash mobs usually indicate a group of people communicate online,
and gather in a public space to perform some same moves (in a variety of ways
such as freezing, dancing, laughing, singing etc.) and disperse into the crowd
after the performance. Scholars suggest flash mobs as collective behavior,
while individuals regard flash mobs as a way to express their attitude and
opinions.
The potential of
flash mobs to empower PR campaigns is obvious. Despite media's
thirst for unusual events, flash mobs also leave surprises for the witnesses,
and lead them to film and talk about the event to others. More buzz would
be generated through social media nowadays. One of the most successful flash
mobs as part of integrated campaigns is T-mobile's "Life if sharing" campaign with a series of flash
mobs.
Our practical blog
not only wish to inform you with general knowledge, below is the step-by-step procedure
of how we can organize a flash mob with a small flash mob we conducted on
Feb 28, 2013.
Step one: Fix your
client and your message to be delivered.
In our case, we took
BU Media school as our brand, and came up with "We are telling the
stories" as our core message.
Step Two: Develop
your performance according to your client and message.
In a less than 5 min
flash mob, you cannot present an aesthetically perfect stage show.
Instead, choose the simplest way to convey the message.
"Storytelling" could be well interpreted through movie scenes. So inour flash mob, we chose three classic scenes with familiar songs to attract and
resonate with audiences.
Step Three: Choose an
effective time and location for your flash mob.
Flash mobs
usually take place in among public crowds, like rail stations,
shopping malls, streets, and in the tube. You need to be smart when deciding
the time as well to reach a large amount of, and not too crowded audience. The
BU Media Mob was set up during lunchtime in BU student refectory.
Step Four:
Consolidate security issues and permission of the venue, and tackle technicalproblems.
Security and
legitimacyare the issue PRPs should not forget in every special activity.
Appropriate management and prevention the risks is a practical skill.
We got the permission
from the BU refectory manager and borrowed loud speakers from the school department.
Step Five:
Communicate with your participants (online).
In traditional flashmobs, participants were mostly volunteers receiving emails from the
organizer. In the case of PR campaigns, you need to control the group of people
and prevent incidents. So the participants tend to be professionals and
pre-organized. Our BU Media Mob took both our classmates and online volunteers,
and set up a Facebook page to inform all participants with details of the
event.
Check our
self-produced video teaching the moves of the BU Media Mob.
Step Six: Keep
practicing if you want perfect outcome.
In the case of
T-mobile, the professionals practiced for a month to get the final presence.
Practice is very much required for a strong, persuasive, and satisfying campaign.
Step Seven: Remember
to record and communicate with the public afterwards.
To PR practitioners,
the publicity result is the most important outcome of organizing such an
event. So you cannot just count on the surprising stunt itself to attract the
publics. Follow-up moves will finally decide the effectiveness of the campaign.
Take a look at our BU
Media Mob! It is not a perfect one, but it will give you some ideas!
