What Are We Teaching PR Students?

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy to [email protected] would be appreciated. The word count is 1245 including the instructions and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2005. What are we teaching PR students? How to make brochures, host parties, talk to reporters and write press releases? Or are we teaching them what the basic premise of PR says we should be teaching them? In other words, students soon learn that whether they go to work for a business, a non-profit organization, a government agency, or an association, they act on their own perception of the facts in front of them, which leads to predictable behavior that can be something. Done. When we create, change, or reinforce that opinion by reaching out, persuading, and moving to desired actions the very people whose behavior most affects the organization, the public relations mission is usually accomplished. This is why, after students of public relations have digested THAT basic touchstone, they should be aware that as future managers, their primary public relations mission will be to bring together the resources and action planning they need to change individual perceptions leading to change behavior between people. their most important external audience. But that is not all! PR students should then learn that they will have to convince these key people of his way of thinking and then get them to take action that will enable their branch, division, department, group or office to succeed. What we want for our new batch of PR students is to know that proper public relations planning really CAN change individual perceptions and lead to behavioral change among very external audiences that will help them succeed as managers. If you find yourself explaining the role of public relations, you need to ask your audience to remember that their PR efforts will require more than the use of special events, press releases, and talk show tactics if they are to get the quality public relations results they deserve. . . As for the results they can expect, tell them how glad they'll be that they took your advice when capital donors or fine-tuning sources start looking at them; customers start making repeat purchases; applications for membership begin to increase; new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures are beginning to emerge; politicians and legislators come to see them as key members of the business, non-profit or association community; there are new jumps in showroom visits; potential customers actually start doing business with them; and community leaders begin to seek them out. Discuss with your audience why it is SO important to know how your most important external audience perceives your operations, products or services. Above all, make sure they truly believe that perceptions will almost always result in behaviors that can help or hurt their traffic. Walk them through the need to monitor and gather insights by interviewing members of their most important external audiences. Have them ask questions like: How much do you know about our organization? Have you been in contact with us before and were you satisfied with the exchange? Are you familiar with our services or products and staff? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures? They should learn that the cost of using professional survey firms to do the job of opinion gathering will be substantially higher than the cost of using their PR colleagues who are already in the perception business. But whether the questions are asked by their people or by a survey firm, the goal remains the same: to identify untruths, false assumptions, unsubstantiated rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions, and any other negative perceptions that might translate into hurtful behavior. Public relations students need to know that here they must set a goal calling for action on the most serious problem areas they have identified during their key audience perception monitoring. Will the goal be to correct a dangerous misconception? Fix a gross inaccuracy? Or stop a potentially painful rumor before it really starts? An equally important lesson is this. Setting a PR goal requires an equally specific strategy that tells you how to achieve it. When it comes to doing something about perception and opinion, there are only three strategic options available to you. Change existing perceptions, create perceptions where none exist, or reinforce them. The wrong strategy will taste like mushroom gravy on your pumpkin pie, so make sure your new strategy fits well with your new public relations goal. You certainly don't want to choose "change" when the facts dictate the reinforcement strategy. Most public relations students already know the importance of good writing. Explain to them that now is the time when good writing comes to the fore. They must craft a compelling message that will help key audiences shift their mindsets. It must be a carefully written message aimed directly at their key external audience. They need to come up with really corrective language that is not only compelling, convincing and believable, but clear and factual if they are to shift perception/opinion towards their point of view and lead to the behavior they have in mind. This step will be of particular interest to many of your students. Now they must choose the communication tactics that are most likely to get their message across to their target audience. There are many available. From speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, face-to-face meetings and much more. But rest assured that the chosen tactics are known to reach people as well as their audience. Another reality that PR students need to know is that the credibility of any message is fragile, so how they communicate it is also important. This is why they may wish to reveal their corrective message before smaller meetings and presentations rather than using high-quality press releases. As always, the need for a progress report should lead them to initiate a second perception monitoring session with members of their external audience. Fortunately, they will want to use many of the same questions that were used in the comparison session. But now they will be on alert for signs that perceptions of bad news are shifting in their direction. Reassure your student audience that if programming is slow, they can always speed things up by adding more communication tactics and increasing their frequency. Students everywhere need reassurance that they're on the right track, and future business, nonprofit, government, and association executives new to PR are no different. What they need to know about public relations are three facts. First, as outlined above, they must muster the resources and action planning needed to change individual perceptions leading to changed behavior among the most.