Social Media

When people think of public relations they either know exactly what it is or they have no clue. It is somewhat understandable—I mean people know its business but what kind of business? My definition of Public Relations is acting as an advocate for whoever you are working for—even if it’s yourself. Public Relations is not only advocacy, but it is creating and sustaining the reputation of a company or client.

How may one go about this you may ask? Various ways but I’ll give a few.

Research

In Public Relations, research is vital for companies and campaigns. Both quantitative and qualitative research should be involved. Research builds credibility, which is so valuable. I mean do you want to be that one person who doesn’t know what they are talking about?

Some people don’t realize how useful social media is when it comes to promoting a company. Social Media is a great way to reach your target audience and update customers and shareholders when a company experiences a crisis.

News aka Press Releases

New Releases are a document that has any local news regarding your company–this is then sent to a newspaper, magazine or wherever it is needed really. This could be news about an event that could be coming up, news about a new product ect.

Events

Public Relations and events go together like cheese and wine. As I said before, there can be events to help promote a new product or a new program the company is putting on. Recently, at Central Washington University, an event planning class hosted an unofficial TedTalk called CatChat. This was an event that CWU students put together. At this event, people from the community talked about their success in the business world. They also offered inspiring words and food for thought. This event was really beneficial and I learned a lot from it.

If you are someone who didn’t know much about Public Relations before reading this blog, now you do. This career allows me to utilize the skills I already have like strong writing and people skills. If you know me, you know that I am an uppity person with a big bright personality. I feed off of people’s energy and this allows me to excel in this field. I know that I still have a lot to learn but I feel that I am off to great start since I will be an Account Executive for Central Communication Agency (Central Washington University’s student-run public relations firm) in the fall.