I NEED MY REPUTATION BACK

READING BOOK TODAY:

WEEK 9

CHAPTER 8 & 10

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: A DRIVING FORCE FOR ACTION

AN ISSUES-CRISIS PERSPECTIVE

Reputation is an estimation of a person or a thing (Mahon&Watrick 2003). Hence, reputation is essential to everyone to maintain it due to the importance of one organization.

Since reputation can be the estimation of a thing, issues also have reputations (Mahon&Wartick, 2003).

Therefore, as a practitioner, we need to tackle the bad issue to gain back the reputation of one organization.

Do you know that Oreo cookies had ever faced the problem of bad issue?

In September 25^th 2008, the biggest and most popular forum website reported that Oreo was one of the 28 food products that contained the illegal milk from China.

Oreo cookies were since declined in almost all the markets in the world.

What do you think the Oreo practitioner solve this problem?

The Oreo factory in Indonesia has come up with an idea of advertising it again with an endorsement saying that Oreo is “MADE IN INDONESIA” instead of “MADE IN CHINA”.

Besides, the advertisement features the picture of a father with his two sons came to the Oreo factory in Jakarta as he was firstly doubted Oreo cookies and wanted to check it by himself that Oreo cookies is actually harmless.

Hence, from the example above we know that issues scanning assists in the identification and awareness of the potential issues an organization may face (Howell 2006).

Monitoring and analysis of the issue aims to measure the potential financial, social, and political impacts of the issue on the organization (Howell 2006).

That is why there is such thing as life of crisis.

Crisis affects one organization and prevents the company from functioning properly.

Crisis threats the organization’s reputation and public or audience perceptions of the organization.

Hence, as the practitioner, we have to be aware of the crisis around us.

I need somebody to manage me

READING BOOK TODAY:

WEEK 8

CHAPTER 7

PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS

The public relations management role in organizations is grounded in systems theory (Mehta&Xavier 2009). 

To achieve organizational goals, internal public relations practitioners must be aware of the relationships between the public relations function and other corporate functions (Mehta&Xavier 2009).

An important role is to build relationships with employees with specific regard to communication channels and organizational culture (Mehta&Xavier 2009).

Let’s just take a hotel in Jakarta as the example, Ritz Carlton hotel in Jakarta, we all know for sure that it is a 5 stars hotel.

They provide each of the customers with excellent service.

How do you think they can be so successful if not because of the good relationships between the public relations function and corporate functions such as the employees in the Ritz Carlton.

 It is essential to have them committed to one another as you know every person is related to a system, that’s why it is important to get them united.

Unity is significant to let the organization achieves its goal easily.

Do you think it is easy to achieve one goal if the staff inside never really work together with each other?

What do you think Ritz Carlton will have become if each of the staff do not have common objective?

Therefore, the public relations practitioners must be aware and take a good care of their job to maintain the relationships between the manager and the employees to accomplish the same objective.

Here is the link of the Ritz Carlton press kit if you'd like to refer to:

http://corporate.ritzcarlton.com/en/Press/Properties/Jakarta/Kits/JakartaSettingNewStandard.htm

Perfecto perfectly

READING BOOK TODAY:

WEEK 7

CHAPTER 6&9

PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTICE and;

STRATEGIES to PROACTIVELY MANAGE ACTIVITY.

MULTISKILLING PERSON:

Being a perfect public relations practitioner, we ought to have the multitasking skill as today’s practitioner is driven by the outcome that needs to be achieved in terms of organizational reputation and relationship management and not solely being the paid mouthpiece of an organization. 

Besides, being a practitioner, it is required to have a better understanding of the big picture and why an issue or a public is relevant for an organization, the ability to see an issue from a different range of perspective is also needed. 

As public relations are there to assist one organization to achieve its objectives, hence it is also essential that a practitioner understands the importance of relationships and the skills to build and strengthen relationships and dialogue. 

Apart from the above, a practitioner needs to be confident in communicating based on relevant theoretical frameworks and a comprehensive appreciation of all aspects.  

THERE ARE 8 CATEGORIES OF PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFECTIVENESS:

Work practices and approach.

Promise to your clients to get the job done.

Takes the responsibility for the work.

Looks to all sides of the issues.

Gives and shares advice; seeks advice.

 Skills, abilities and knowledge.

Provides advices.

Deals with difficult issues.

Understands what is required; knows the job well.

Good understanding of public relations and media requirements.

Experience and background.

Solid experience is needed.

Long and broad public relations exposure.

Personal attributes.

Genuine.

Creative.

Works out to build own knowledge and expand professional capabilities.

High degree of professionalism.

Judgment and ethics.

Honest in a way not imitate people’s work.

Ethical (serve your client ethically).

Has integrity and will do what they feel is right.

Aware of implications.

Relationship with management.

Accepted by the management.

Management sees them as equals.

Image and reputation.

High credibility and acceptance.

Well known in public relations profession.

Good reputation in industry and the profession.

Very established in profession.

Works for the profession.

Protects the image and reputation of the profession.

Gives time to develop the profession.

Committed to the profession.

Therefore, public relations skills are required across a range of different organizations (Synnott, 2001).

Public Relations practitioners need strategies and tactics to develop their creative ideas. Is that true?

In fact, yes it is as the practitioners use the strategies and tactics that they believe to achieve intentional representation and intended meaning.

It is important also that being a practitioner, you have to be able to frame your story to best suit a particular journalist’s interests. 

Every organization will require a public relations strategy as the basis of its communication programs and plans.

According to James 2001, a good working definition of strategy in public relations is this Strategy is a plan or method by which you are going to achieve a specific goal in a contested environment.

In public relations, strategic planning is where you develop one plan in order to achieve your public relations goal.

Yet, before you proceed to have your perfect strategies, you have to do enough research to provide yourself with sufficient background of the issue and after that analyze the outcome.

That is what a practitioner should do before completing one task.

Organizing your forever CHAOS!

Do you know that Singapore has its very first and only professional organizing service, which is ... OCD (Organizing Chaos Daily).

Today, our class was given a brief presentation on what we have to do for our final assignment.

Apparently, it was a service and I think we have to put a lot of effort to accomplish this task.

TASK : 1. Reaching out to the target audience with limited budget ;
2. Educating the public with limited resources.

To me it is a little bit tough as the budget is limited.

Even she has mentioned that WOM a.k.a Word Of Mouth is the most effective way, but then to inform public about this particular service, the media is quite essential as well.

Meantime, I still have no idea what to do for the service as I am sure it will take sometime to think.

READING BOOK TODAY:

WEEK 6

ENGAGING WITH THE MEDIA

Do you know that mass media is very useful and important to the public relations practitioners?

The mass media is very important is because the reach, the believability and the timeliness, even sometimes the information can be a little too much.

The mass media like televisions, radios, newspapers, magazines and newsletters can reach the maximum number of audiences within short time.

Yet, if you want to work with the media, you have to take a note that you should not provide too much information to the journalists or whoever person you work with.

It is important to explore theories that can be applied to your work with the media.

One of the theories that can be applied is framing theory (Tversky&Khaneman 1981) explains that the way something is presented influences how the audience perceives the topic.

Framing is where we write a news in a way that we want people to perceive it.

Framing is a natural part of human communication, even in our daily life, you will unconsciously frame your story to your friends.

It is true that framing sometimes can be a bit bias in a way how people tell the story.

Public relations media releases frame events in ways favourable to the organization and public, as the practitioners frame the story to meet the journalist’s criteria of news.

Yet, not all pieces of news will be chosen and used by the media gatekeepers.

The media gatekeepers are the editors, directors of news, or chiefs of staff who select from among what is an offer—media releases, news tips, letters, emails, web diaries, or blogs—for stories that appeal (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

The gatekeeper is the one who will make a decision on whether to accept or reject your story based on criteria.

Hence, it is important to concern more on the news values such as :

Truth: Public expects the trustworthy news from the journalist, so, if whoever journalist withhold the true information to himself, he would become a hostile.

Timeliness: Public expect to know the updated news instead of the outdated one or even the news that other media has already published. Do you expect to read the 31^st December 2009 news when you actually already in year 2010?

Proximity: The further away from the medium’s coverage area an event is, the more earth-shattering and unusual it has to be to make the news (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

Conflict: Journalists and public have been implanted the taught that conflict makes the news more interesting.

Eminence and prominence: Public relations and media relations practitioners aim to boost coverage of a product launch or building opening, for example, through celebrity involvement (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

Consequence and impact: The journalist should produce a news which affects public in the region where it occurs, as people will never read your news if it does not even relate to them, won’t they?

The unusual or remarkable: Any piece of story that is distinctive, it can be your company, product or even a service.

So, it is essential to get the news values before you start off writing it to prevent your news being rejected.

Besides, it is also important that we are to build good relationships with journalists and editors.

It would be easier for us to get the news being published on the paper.

Get to know the journalists who report on areas your organization is interested in (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

Always meet your deadlines.

Have up-to-date databases.

Know how newsrooms are organized.

Develop a media strategy.

Know what is news and what is not.

To be a good public relations practitioner, we have to have the skill of writing a good media release to attract the media attention as well.

Keep your release clear and concise.

Most important news first

Background last; the editor should be able to identify the major points of the release by reading the lead or first sentence (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

Lastly, you know that the tools for effective media relationships are diverse; you need good media releases, photos that add to the story and punchy headlines (Chia&Synnott, 2009).

your MOUTH is the biggest power

Do you know what interest me in today lesson?

"WORD-OF-MOUTH contagion is an essential component of experiential marketing."

I second that idea very much as I believe that word of mouth has a strong influence on people.

How to say that?

"TWITTER" is the most obvious example!!

twitter is so happening right now that everybody loves to tweet almost every day, every hour or even every minute.

So, you could just imagine how beneficial twitter is.

I love to tweet as well and until one day I found out about "ipad" through tweeter.

People are discussing it so much that it just appeared on my time line.

I checked it out immediately as I was curious too what "ipad" looks like and everything, and then I shared it to my friends about it via twitter.

I personally think that if someone expects people to know their product or events, I might suggest to spread it first via Facebook and Twitter.

I found a lot of people had their products sold via facebook and it is very efficient.

Hence, to me the power of spreading from mouth to mouth is just so effective and also fast.

READING BOOK TODAY:

WEEK 5

CHAPTER 5

PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH

My mom once told me if I want to destroy my enemy, I have to get to know his or her weaknesses first, then only I'd know the way to defeat him or her.

To me, being a practitioner is similar to that case, doing research, analysis, and evaluation are needed to construct a strategy, so that the strategy would carry out the intended meaning (strategy where we can easily defeat our enemy). It’s something like how can you develop a strategy without knowing the public knowledge, how is your organization’s surrounding, and what is the background that leads to the problem?

What do you say? I mean it's just so true that research is just so important to understand your case well.

You will definitely fail to get your clients in your hands if you do not have enough understanding about their backgrounds or whatever is related to them.

Okay, for instance, if we want to help apple to create public awareness about their new collection, IPAD, how do you think you will start off first?

Promote it directly based on the knowledge that you own?

If there is a customer or journalist who wants to know deeper about the IPAD and unfortunately you do not know, what do you think the customer or journalist will do?
THEY WILL JUST WALK AWAY AND .. IGNORE YOU!

Therefore, better to get your research done perfectly before you go on with your case studies.

It's just a common knowledge that you've got to know this fundamental research thingy.

So, all the best for your research! ;D

Shaking Hands Being Friends

Overall today's lesson that was appealing to me was about building the relationship between me (as the PR) and the journalists.

If we are good at making friends, I think this building relationship thingy is just a piece of cake for you, am I right?

I mean, building a relationship based on trust, on positive experiences on both sides, etc, I am sure these are the basic things that everyone should have in the beginning, right? Not only do PR people need that, I bet all the business people need that as well.
If one company wish to collaborate with another company, the basic thing that they are looking for are trust and positive experiences.

Moving on to the next thing that I would like to say is that to be a successful PR, we should have a perfect strategy and tactics afterall.

Spoken tactics, acted tactics and imagined tactics.

okay, lets say if I were the PR and I am supposed to hand in a plan for the grand opening restaurant.

The first thing that I should consider in doing are finding who are my target audiences, my objectives, my goals, my strategies and also my tactics.

After I know who my target audiences are, my goals and objectives are then only I could carry on to the next thing.

I could proceed on to sending out the press release and media alerts 3 weeks before the restaurant's grand opening, including the venue and opening time details as my first step.

Looking for the sponsorships.

Having the media and photographers on hand for the photos taking.

Creating an attractive website with all the available menu.

Team up with the other local event for more food public relations.

Become a news source to capitalize on the restaurant PR plan. Invite food editors to the restaurant; offer ideas for their columns. Let local radio and TV stations and trade associations know the chef or owner is the go-to PR person for stories on food pairings and party preparation.

Work with other business owners to combine resources for an ongoing public relations plan (the restaurant hangs a gallery's art; the gallery has restaurant menus available.).

Read more at Suite101: Restaurant Public Relations Plan: Create a Top-Notch PR Plan for Your Restaurant http://marketingpr.suite101.com/article.cfm/restaurant_public_relations_plan#ixzz0e4bgrWW2

Inviting the food editors to the restaurant; offer ideas for their columns.

Let local radio and TV stations and trade associations report on the restaurant. etc.

You could do anything as long as it could attract more people to realize the existence of your client's product.

PR people should keep promoting and developing their own creativity to succeed.

That is what I think I have learned for today. Thank you.

Become a news source to capitalize on the restaurant PR plan. Invite food editors to the restaurant; offer ideas for their columns. Let local radio and TV stations and trade associations know the chef or owner is the go-to PR person for stories on food pairings and party preparation.

Work with other business owners to combine resources for an ongoing public relations plan (the restaurant hangs a gallery's art; the gallery has restaurant menus available.).

Read more at Suite101: Restaurant Public Relations Plan: Create a Top-Notch PR Plan for Your Restaurant http://marketingpr.suite101.com/article.cfm/restaurant_public_relations_plan#ixzz0e4bgrWW2

READING BOOK TODAY :
WEEK 4
THEORY AND PRACTICE ON THE JOB.

Research is an important tool for public relations practitioners. (SYnnott&Chia, 2009).

In fact, almost every subject that we learn needs research as the basic tool.

Research can assist us as it provides information that helps to plan, implement and evaluate.

Being the public relations practitioners, we have got to master this basic tool as we are going to need it in every single task that we encounter to.

Lets say we were the public relations and we need to assist xxx organization in its PR industry, but then we never even done a single research on the product that we are going to launch on, how do you think we are going to promote it to the journalists?
Just based on our knowledge? guess? make assumptions? forget about the details?
Research will definitely have a great help for public relations practitioners in doing their task.

It enables the public relations practitioners to create programs based on better understanding of issues and with a better appreciation of context, which in turn gives us confidence in the recommended communication solution.

Wilcox et al. (2006: 153) liken planning to putting together a jigsaw puzzle, with research providing the clues about where to place the individual pieces.

The practitioners will constantly ask questions in their quest to fully get the idea of the problems, issues, or opportunity before they start to develop strategies to deal with the situation.

Research is simply a process whereby we are to gather the information that will provide the basis to establish an understanding of situations and issues and make sense of them.

There is always a way where we can complete our task perfectly, so serve your clients well by doing the research well as your basic weapon.

While Im doing this, I could always do that .. *winkwink

READING BOOK TODAY :
WEEK 3
PUBLIC RELATIONS ETHIC

What is ethic to you??

And is that really important to public relations?

To me ethics is the principles of right and wrong that are accepted by an individual or a social group; as, the Puritan ethic.
Yet, to Chia and Synnott 2009 ethics is about standards of behavior, specifically, concern for good behavior and consideration of how our behavior, as an individual or an organization, affects the wellbeing of others or society as a whole.
Ethics involves morals and values.
If we are making an effort to behave ethically, we will consider the morals and values involved in our actions before we act.

Even we know most of the public relations people are good people, but only with good does not guarantee them to have an ethical outcome.
Ethics has to be brought up, its not necessarily natural.

To be a perfect public relations practitioner, the basic thing that you have to have is ethics.

You've got to behave in an ethical way when communicating with your clients to have them have a good impression on you and want to work with you.

PR ethics that every public relations have to own are;
HONESTY, ACCURACY, INTEGRITY and TRUTH.

It used to be the job of public relations professionals to fix PR disasters.