Am I a good PR student?

I divide my class time and passion for learning between my English degree track and my public relations degree track. Sometimes I wonder how my progress compares to other students who can focus on a single degree track.

This was part of my thinking when I participated in the second annual PR Showdown this semester, and it turns out I'm a pretty good PR student.

"A team-based competition to find out who the fastest, smartest, most creative public relations students in the West are"

My team, Best PRactices, was randomly compiled of four individual participants. We had a PR minor, two sophomore PR students and a senior English/PR major. 

I was afraid we wouldn't do well at all, seeing as how the majority of our team hadn't taken any relevant classes yet, and while I'm great at writing and editing, I'm not as confident of my skills in strategic planning, crisis communication, graphic design, etc.

We were also facing hand-selected, five-person teams of  senior PR students who had worked together on multiple projects and were the cream of the crop.

However, we put in our best effort and ended up winning a challenge and earning 2nd place out of the full competition.

The competition was split into four challenges in one week and a final challenge the following week, so I'll split this post into five sections.

(Yes, this competition took place in February and it's taken me over two months to write about it.


To be fair, it took two months for us to receive our prize for the challenge we won, and it's hard to share a picture of a prize that hasn't been seen.)

Day 1: PR Strategy Challenge

For the first 24-hour challenge, we were told to develop a strategic PR communication plan for a sports organization. One of our members had taken a strategies class and I had taken an international sports class, but we were pretty out of our depth on this challenge.

We put together a plan to "raise awareness among the virtual USA Water Polo community about the emerging water polo program at virtual Texas Tech University." We didn't think it was that great, but we were the second highest scoring team in this challenge.

This wasn't a very exciting challenge for me, and probably not for you either, so that's all the detail I'll include.

Day 2: Writing Challenge

For the second daily challenge, we wrote a press release and a media pitch to promote the PR Showdown.

Now, I'm a pretty decent writer, and two of us had taken PR Writing, so this challenge was much more intuitive. We used the headline "A Week of Public Relations and Easy Mac," which we all agreed was pretty catchy.

We scored fourth place in this challenge, but if you want to check out our press release, check out this link.

Day 3: Creative Challenge

This third challenge involved creating a media product to raise awareness of a hypothetical new location of CapRock Cafe. 

One of our members had a knack for graphic design, but for some reason or other, she was unable to participate and create anything for us.

Our poster was created in Canva and really isn't that pretty, but at least we put something together, combining multiple different ideas, and found ourselves in fourth place again.

Day 4: Social Media Challenge

The final challenge of the week was to create a social media campaign proposal, as well as a content plan for two weeks, for the Museum of TTU.

Now, if you know me, you probably know that I'm currently working as a social media intern and want to pursue social media management as a career. I'm not necessarily the best or brilliant at social media, but I have a pretty decent understanding.

Two of us created graphics and wrote copy for two weeks of content, and we won this challenge by a decent amount of points. Want to check it out?

Final Challenge: Crisis Communication

The three top-scoring teams faced off in the final challenge by holding mock press conferences.

The client: Southwest Airlines. 

The crisis: A news story has been released, claiming that a security breach at Southwest Airlines has been ignored and confidential information (like credit card numbers) may have been accessed by unknown parties. 
The Challenge: Plan out a crisis response strategy and host a press conference to demonstrate our knowledge of crisis management, public relations, and strategic communication.

One of the pieces included in our media packet

For some reason, we didn't realize that we had access to multimedia, so we were the only team to not utilize a power point. We put in the time to build a website to accompany our crisis strategy and included a QR code on the packets of papers we passed out. 



I think that if we had shown the site on the big screen, we would have ensured that the judges understood we built an actual site, and that might have been the tipping point in our favor.

As it stands, the winning team was the team of officers from the TTUPR organization. They had also put in a lot of time, already understood how to work well with each other, and were all seniors, so it makes sense that they beat us out with their presentation. 

Also, the grand prize of going to a networking event in DFW was more necessary for them, as they were a few months away from needing jobs while half of my team still has two years of classes and plenty of networking opportunities ahead of them.

We got official certificates to acknowledge that we were almost winners

Did I wish my team of underdogs would have won the PR Showdown? Yes.

Was everyone surprised by how well we did? Yes.

Am I glad that I participated and gave up two weeks of my life for the competition? Absolutely.

We can't all be winners, but I definitely feel more validated in my PR degree, knowing that I led our team to an almost victory.


Heading off to test my social media prize,
The Purple Writer

The Sam's Club approach to social media.

This post was written in collaboration with Lyndsey Walton.

We conducted a social media audit of the Sam’s Club brand in class recently. We looked at the platforms they are active on, the content they post, and how they interact with their audiences.

Platforms

Sam’s Club is active on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and Instagram, and have inactive accounts on YouTube and Pinterest.

The brand posts four to seven times a week on its active accounts but has not posted anything for several months on their inactive account.

Sam’s Club has a mobile app but only current members can use this app, so it does not engage with prospective consumers. 

We also don’t know if the app interacts with other platforms.

Content

Sam’s Club does an excellent job producing original content and cross-promoting it on their platforms. 

For example, when they had samples of Sea Cuisine’s fish tacos, they posted an enticing picture in their posts, mentioning the brand @SeaCuisine on applicable platforms.




We did notice that Sam’s Club posted a video about tailgating gear on Facebook but not on YouTube. 

This seems like a missed opportunity of easy cross-promotion.

Interactions

Each Sam’s Club post has a call to action (CTA), encouraging their audiences to engage with the brand. Most of the CTAs are to visit local Sam’s Club locations and try samples or buy products.

Instead of responding to individual posts or tweets, Sam’s Club generally asks those with questions or concerns to directly message the brand so they can respond privately and with personal answers.

Sam’s Club maintains a very professional and concise tone on social media. They use short sentences to convey clear messages, although the brand does use hashtags on Instagram to keep content relevant in current discussions.

Impressions

While Sam’s Club does a great job cross-promoting their original content, we would encourage the brand to utilize a more personal touch, like hashtags and more public engagement with their audience. 

Because Sam’s Club is a retailer and most of the brand’s posts are about products, we also think Pinterest would be an ideal platform for this brand to develop and be more active on.


Ready for us to present our analysis,
The Purple Writer

What's the point of a public relations strategies class?

*written for PR 3315: Online & Digital PR

I took PR 3311: Strategies at Texas Tech in the spring of 2014.

It’s been a little over a year, but looking over my notes, briefs, and reports from that class, I was struck by how important that class really was in preparing me to enter the field of public relations.

You may think that public relations is all about spinning stories to make companies or entities look good.  I’m here to tell you that’s just not the case.

-> First of all, just like the majority of other fields and focuses, public relations has many different forms, methods, and kinds of practitioners. 

Don't judge an entire field based on a few bad examples you've seen in movies or on TV. 

-> Secondly, there is generally a surprising level of strategy and planning which goes into public relations, as it has a lot to do with monitoring how people perceive brands and how to improve those perceptions. 

Things often change in an instant without warning, so having a solid crisis plan in place and knowing how to respond is essential.

Whether you’re curious about what one would learn in a public relations strategy class or you simply don’t remember much from when you did take such a class, here’s a refresher on what I think are the most important points.

Five things I learned from my PR Strategies class:

1. Always analyze an issue or crisis in depth before doing anything.  

If you don’t know what you’re dealing with, you can’t respond to situations well. Don’t choose speed over quality.

2. Pay attention to your positioning. 

Know how your organization is unique and don’t lose sight of that while engaging your internal and public audiences.

3. Make use of available tools to make your job easier. 

 For example, it’s practically impossible to catch every mention of your brand or area of focus without help, so set up Google Alerts for whatever you’re monitoring.

4. Listen to other opinions. 

Your audience(s) will have different perspectives than you, so a message crafted just for yourself may not reach very far.

5. Keep your goals and objectives obtainable. 

Impossible dreams will set you up for failure, so figure out where you want to end up and outline simple steps to get there. You’ll be better equipped to see progress and catch issues before they get too big.

A lot went into the public relations strategies class I took, and while I may not remember all of the details or guidelines, I am very glad I took it.

It helped me understand how to analyze organizations and situations, create strategies and work on crisis plans, and to be prepared while knowing that I may never know what’s going to happen next.

I highly recommend a strategy class or webinar to anyone in the public relations field, as well as any communications or business students.

Feeling a little more prepared,

The Purple Writer