CAT Ch 16 High-Profile Projects

English: Annual reports of the , Singapore. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems as Public Relations professionals have a whole lot of work on their hands. Aside from having to do a lot of wiring as a PR professionals they also work on some big important projects that require a lot of work and time.

This chapter talks about 3 most common projects they are annual reports, special events, exhibition or convention.

An annual report is a really big deal not only does it take time to do it but it means a lot to both nonprofits as well as public companies. It can give companies a lot of credibility. There is 3 ways that annual report can be used as: annual report as financial document which is the most important, annual report as public relations document, and last but not least annual report as social responsibility. Different companies might make their annual reports look different from the others. Some might use graphics and maybe some advertising as some might not. So be sure to know what your company wants you to do so you do it right.

Another most common project is a special event.  When you right for a special event your message needs to cover a variety of audience. Just like when you do any other type of writing you want to cover a big range of people.

Last most common project is exhibition or a convention. In this particular project I have learned that an original role of a PR professional is changed. To be able to meet the deadlines of your new project you must have a plan in detail.

Ch 14 CAT Persuasion for Mass Action

The overall message of this chapter is advocacy. It’s the foundation of what Public Relations is all about. I will go over a couple important topics in this chapter.

 

Maslow’s hierarchy is talking about the human needs. It is a pyramid of five levels. There is the need for self-actualization, the need for self-esteem, status, respect, the need for love companionship, the need for safety, security, and physiological needs. It’s all about truly knowing your audience. Knowing if you have active or passive audience is really important.

 

Emotion appeal is another important aspect of this chapter. It is used a lot in everyday life and corporation use it a lot with their audience, not just corporations but small companies more so. It’s a big part of the message. Power of words goes along with emotional appeal because it would have a bigger effect if you know how to put the two and two together. Especially if you target it right with your audience.

 

Some of the ways that the message goes out to target audience is by PSA which is public service announcements. We hear these every day more than once. I have no idea that PSA is just a short ad.  These are just a few things from the chapter that stood out, I know that persuasion is really big in PR and you need to know what you’re doing.

 

English: A colorful depiction of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

CAT ch 13 The Multipurpose Medium

Chapter 13 taught me all about writing for the media. A lot of the writing these days are more digital than anything else so it’s really important to know what you’re doing. At the begging of the chapter it talks about why public relations professionals use internet. It gives us 3 reasons: for communicating with their organization’s public’s  for research and for their own personal and professional development.  When I read that I didn’t

 

World wide web (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

think that was enough, it feels like there should be so much more to it.

 

Some of the other helpful information came from limitations writing for the web. It talked about how you can’t take anything back after you have already put it out there. You can’t forget about all the audience. When you put your information out on the web you now have a global audience so we all need to make sure everyone is included. It’s very important to link to credible sources.

 

Web writing is different than a print document. When you print something it’s usually longer but that’s not the case for web writing. The length of your document is smaller and catchier. You want to make sure it’s quickly to read, efficient, easily to navigate and not cluttered.

 

One last thing that was interesting to me was towards the end of the chapter talking about PR objectives. You want to put your newsletters online and news releases. Using distribution services.

 

Ch 12 When the news isn’t good

Thumbs down red (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

This chapter had a lot of really interesting information on crisis. When a crisis happens there is nothing we can do but respond to it in an appropriate manner. Couple things to consider are the audience, timing and content. If and when a crisis happens we need to be on top of it. Not just public relations professionals but the entire company.

 

Since we never know when a crisis may happen, our books gives 5 really helpful stages. The first stage is detection, this is when you are always on the lookout, and you are the eyes and the ears of the company. Second stage is preparation, what will you do in a crisis situation, you prepare yourself. Third stage is containment if you get out there and tell about the crisis before anyone else you will be better in a long run. Another stage if recovery you’re turning back to the way things used to be. Last but not least is learning and evaluating, learn from your mistakes and do research it always come to good use.

 

The writing strategies are really important, especially when it comes to writing strategies for crisis communication. Establishing a clear position you are in the fore front but not telling all the information. Being honest, that’s a given. Be concise whoever is the face of the company needs to be trained to they will answer in a proper manner such as concise answers.  Look forward focus on the solution. Do not assign blame legal department will be a real good help. Take advantage of your employer’s good reputation. If you company has always done really well then it has a good chance that it will help them but the company still needs to respond to the crisis.

 

Sad face (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

CAT ch 11 Let’s Hear It Writing for Broadcast, Script, and Speeches

Chapter 11 talked about broadcast, scriptwriting and speechrooms. Come to find out that broadcasting is a very small part of public relations responsibility. A great way to save time when you are required to write a broadcast is to not write one. Instead of writing a separate piece of work just uses the news release. This way you kill two birds with one stone. There are positives for having a message be boadcast. Lets say you need some action to make a point, it would be good choice to use broadcast.

 

Another thing that was talked about in the chapter was scriptwriting. Scriptwriting has changed a lot since moms and dads have been out of college. Now scriptwriting is works on flip charts, 35-mm slides, overhead transparencies and much more. I never knew that public relations do that job.

 

From going over this chapter I think it would be really helpful to others.  Also when a public relations professional adapts to many different methods it is not only going to benefit you but also the organization.

 

I think that this chapter really helped me out and it can help many people out that maybe done know much about these subjects. For every one of the different writing it goes into deeper detail of what all needs to be done to make it good.

 

Screenwriting (Photo credit: BLundin)

 

CAT Chapter 15 Persuasion for Individual Action

 

An example of direct mail used by political campaigns, from the U.S. Presidential campaign of 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This chapter has taught me a lot about direct mail and brochures. I have never really noticed how important of a role direct mail plays in public relations. I learned that direct mail is not only done by e-mail (which is what I thought) but it’s also done by sending actually letters or any other communication that can be mass produced.

 

A good point was brought up to my attention. Direct mail can reach anyone in the whole world. When I send out direct mail it goes out

 

in a mass messages. This is a huge advantage because I will be able to reach multiple people. One thing I will always have to keep in

 

mind when I write is that your audience only has so much attention and time when reading any sort of information. I will have to grab the attention in the first paragraph. Not only do I want to grab their attention but if they do decide to keep reading you want to make it semi short depending on what your writing.

 

On page 404 in the ethical issue section it provided me with great guidelines for ethical practice of public relations. I think it was really helpful for me and it can be for others as well, we need to be aware of them.

 

Another page that I found really helpful to me was page 412 and it talked about brochures. Before reading this chapter I was clueless on this topic. I have never one a brochure before so it was really interesting learning about it. I found page 412 it almost gave me some sort of guidelines as to what needs to be put in the brochures. Brochures and public relations definitely go hand in hand.

brochure_delft_03 (Photo credit: nilsmengedoht)

 

CAT ch 6

 

© is the copyright symbol in a copyright notice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

In chapter 6 I have learned a lot of information on legal influences on Public Relations writing. Before entering the PR work I might want to know one of two things on the legal influences, so I won’t get into trouble.

 

We have touched upon this topic plenty of times in other PR courses. This is just refreshment so no one will forget. How embarrassing would it be to possibly get fired because you weren’t clear on a copyright law?

 

A few thinks that I took away from the chapter: is that when I get into this field restriction and limits change over time and it’s my responsibility to stay on track. This chapter taught me to double-check my work before accidently crossing the line and then being too late and possibly losing my job. Having a lawyer working with you or your company is a great idea, it could be very helpful but you got to make sure that you stick to the same story when it comes down to any legal issues.

 

I always knew that writing is really important in this field but I never knew that not writing properly could possible cause legal implications. It seems as that a lot of issues that go on in PR have to deal with the ownership rights, which would make sense because it falls into copyright, trademarks and more. On page 131 I found the symbols of the key commands to be very helpful if you don’t know what they mean. It was interesting to see what stands for what.

 

CAT ch 9

Throughout chapter 8 we have learned the importance of having good planning and planning for the right thing. Well

Time Management (Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

with in planning you must have good time management so you get all your tasks complete. I know that when I start my career I will need to have a plan and time management to get my deadlines met. Part of chapter 9 information was on deadlines.

When you think of deadlines you think of deadlines that need to be met for your tasks. But if you think about it, this is not the way public relations world runs. There are deadlines with in deadlines. Just because I have a deadline I need to meet I might be forgetting about other important deadlines. If I want to have something published for my company I may have already missed the deadline for the media. Media have their own deadlines which should become mine as well, if I want something published.

Honestly from the begging of my career to the end I will most likely deal with the media more than once. To make things easier for everyone I will have to have a good relationship with them. Being on good terms with the media might be the closest I will get to control my message.

Other useful information in this chapter was talking about news writing for the press. I have no idea how many things you should look into when you’re writing for the press.  The first one is content which is basically what is considered news to the press. Second is structure you have to make sure the writing part is done right by having an attention-getting, having the right lead. Style is another one. When you write for the press make sure you write it is media style so it will most likely be published and this way media will see that you know what you’re doing. Last but not least is your formatting. Does it look good? Things like contact information, spacing, page number and such.

CAT ch 8

Couple things to take away from chapter 8 were the basic things I will need to know as a professional going into my career and the basics of a business media.

As a professional I will need to be good at what I do that means I will have to be on top of my game. It will start out with having a good plan and control over things. I have never realized how much planning a person really needs to do what needs to be done. I will have to plan right starting with my audience. Knowing the purpose and selecting the audience right will be the begging to success.

I know that I won’t be able to be reaching the variety of audience that I would like. I have learned that I would have to think really hard at what public I should aim at. Perhaps which one would be the most valuable to the organization.

Aside from my planning, an interesting thing I learned about media control is that there are two kinds of it. The first one is controlled media where the professional can control the importance of their message. The second one is uncontrolled media. This is self explanatory you have no control as soon as media gets a hold of it you lose the control.

Another thing I learned is that when I get my first job as an entry-level public relations writer I will have to learn the appropriate writing style that is required by my organization. That means that I will have to less exciting things. I have heard it over and over from other people that when you get your job that’s what you will have to go through but it just never clicked. So maybe before I get my first job I will have to do a little bit research and maybe just maybe I won’t have to do the less exciting material.

CAT-ch 5

In chapter 5 I learned about research influences on Public Relations. The first example that was given in the book describes research perfectly to my understanding. It was talking about when we search for a college what we go through before actually deciding. We go there to visit, eat their food, sit in on a lecture, determine the distance of the school from home, and what majors or other educational benefits they may offer. Once this research is combined, it is relatively simple to determine the right school to attend that will fill your needs.

This applies when you have your career because if I want to be the best professionals I can be I also have to be the best at researching about anything that’s required of me.  I think that the tips for database and web site searches can be very helpful and a useful asset to us. It will save me a lot of time in the future.

Talking about he world-wide web as much of a helpful tool it is for everyone a good point was made that we should be careful and defiantly over look on the information that’s given. A good example of this would be Wikipedia. That web site is great when I’m trying to understand something but I never think that people can go in and edit that information so there for it’s no longer credible. Our book gives some great ways you can evaluate web sites, I think it would definitely help out a lot.

One of the most important searches you will perform will most likely be about your organization. I think it’s really true; at least it seems like it to me. For example, if you want to be successful toward your career, you will need to understand the functioning or operation of the organization as this will allow you to adapt and be a key employee for its success.

Not only will the research of how the company you are working for operates be essential, but also another important topic to research is about our publics or audience.  With out knowing anything about my audience, one cannot be successful. It’s that simple. The key way to stay connected is by finding out what’s around you, that’s why they have created al of these database searches so we can be successful.