Now it’s time to evaluate the campaign

In the past few weeks my group and I have been tying up all the loose ends of our campaign and evaluating our success. Evaluation is a very new thing to me. I have had a few internships and plenty of “real world” experience in the public relations world but I have never truly evaluated the success (or failure) of my work. Sitting down and truly looking at the success of our work as a group has been an interesting process. In some areas we exceeded our expectations and in others we kind of fell flat. But I think that is the true nature of any public relations campaign. All of your ideas are not going to work and you cannot always make people pay attention to you or your client. Throughout our campaign we relied heavily on social media to reach our target audience and we feel that we were quite successful in making impressions through our various social media sites. The Facebook page we created for LDSC has over 360 “likes” with the largest percentage of “likes” coming from our target audience (we learned this information from the nifty insights page Facebook creates for the organization’s page). Similarly the LDSC’s Twitter page had similar success with multiple organizations tagging and tweeting about LDSC. We are still waiting on the final results from our post-campaign awareness survey, but I feel that with our results from social media we definitely achieved our goal in making our target audience more aware of LDSC.

I cannot believe that I am almost done with campaigns and that my last semester at LSU is almost over. I never thought that this day would actually come. I have really enjoyed my final semester, and even though at times campaigns was overwhelming, I have really enjoyed all that I have learned from the class. As the semester draws to a close so does my time spent working with Louisiana Delta Service Corps and Prelude Public Relations and I am going to miss all the crazy times working on this campaign.

I truly feel that the skills I have learned while working in campaigns and as a student in the Manship School will help me be successful in the public relations world. As I push through these final weeks of school I look forward to graduation and my future as a public relations professional.

For more information about me check out my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!

The PRocess of planning an event

One of the major ways to get an organizations name out and raise awareness is through an event. Since the main purpose of our campaign for Louisiana Delta Service Corps is to raise name recognition and awareness in the college community, my group and I decided to host an informational meeting to spread the word. Our event is Monday April, 2, at St. Alban’s Episcopal Chapel. We are hoping that the event will give LDSC an opportunity to let their target audience know what their organization does and the benefits that they can offer. We are planning to have two current corps members, who are actually married to each other, to talk about their experience as corps members and why they decided to work for LDSC. After the current corps members speak, we plan to have an alumna of the organization speak about how she has benefited from working with LDSC and how it is great for networking.

The main way we are publicizing the event is through social media. The survey that we conducted at the beginning of our campaign indicated how crucial social media is when targeting the 18-24 age group. A majority of people in this age group use social media as a main medium for receiving information. We have created LDSC a new Facebook page and Twitter in order to promote the event to their target audience. We also plan to use other traditional forms to promote the event, including a press release and fliers.

At the event we plan to premiere a promotional and informational video that we have commissioned to be created. We wanted to create something that they could use to tell the story of LDSC and what they do that would be entertaining to the audience they are trying to reach. Our generation really responds to things that are visual but they need to be captivating to be able to hold our attention. We felt that a short informational video would be a good way to get the word out about LDSC but also catch the attention of their target audience. One member of our group got to spend a memorable day helping film several of the host sites in New Orleans. Check out her blog for more details on that experience.

Check back to see how the event went and if we succeeded in raising awareness of LDSC!

For more information on me and our campaign check out my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn!

The relationship between a public relations campaign and social media

One of the main things that I have learned from all my experiences in the public relations world is that social media is key to the success of a company and their public relations campaigns. In this day and age everyone has social media. And I mean everyone. From our parents (and even some people’s grandparents), to celebrities, to companies. Social media are one of the main methods of communication. As I search for jobs, almost every position in the public relations/marketing sector require experience with social media.

In the research step of the ROPES process my group (Prelude Public Relations) did a survey to gain information about our target audience, young adults between 18 and 24 years old. In the survey results we learned that a large majority of our target audience gets most of their information and news from social media. We think this is a very important fact when it comes to raising awareness of our organization, Louisiana Delta Service Corps.

Our organization does have a Facebook and Twitter, though they are not using either site to their full potential. One of our major strategies is to increase the usage of the social media profiles that LDSC already has and to involve them on other social media sites. Recently nonprofits have been getting more involved on Pinterest and using it as another site to communicate with their audience and the general public. Another site that many companies and nonprofits are using is LinkedIn. We hope to have profiles for LDSC on both of these sites by the end of the campaign. One of LDSC major weaknesses is setting themselves apart from their partners sites, and we feel that by branding themselves on these social media sites they will be able to make themselves more visible and raise awareness of what they do in the Louisiana community.

Another major strength of social media is that it is an interactive medium for communication. A company and its audience can have two-way communication through these social media sites allowing for a better relationship between the organization and their publics. We really hope to use these sites to increase the interaction between LDSC and their former corps members through an alumni page on several social media sites.

Our next step is begin promoting LDSC and our event on social media! Check back for updates on our campaign!

For more information about me or my service learning site you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest!

So what’s the next step? Is it objectives?

Before I took a mass communication class, I never knew how complex objectives really were. Throughout my time at the Manship School  I have learned exactly what makes an objective and the certain criteria they need to meet. Over and over again it has always been emphasized that objectives need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely).

From the beginning of our project my group and I have really tried to apply the ROPES process that we have been taught in pretty much every mass communication class we have taken. Last week I covered the first step in the process, research, so it only seems fitting that this week I would just continue on to the next step, objectives.

I originally thought that a goal and an objective were basically the same thing but I have since found out they have different purposes. A goal is the overarching thing that you want to achieve. Our goal for our campaign for Louisiana Delta Service Corps is to increase awareness of the organization and what they do in their target audience. An objective is more specific and targeted at achieving a certain part of the goal. An example of one is increasing Facebook impressions by 10 percent by April 1. We are still trying to get the best objectives for our goal and objectives that will help us have a successful campaign, but don’t worry they will be SMART.

As I learned about the ROPES process in one mass communication class after the other I never really thought that one day I would sit down and actually apply it step by step. After working on this campaign I have found that not to be the case. By using the ROPES process I really think that my group has been able to remain on track and stay organized.

The next steps are creating SMART objectives and to begin planning the main portion of the campaign. We have already got the ball rolling on an event and have established a theme. I am really excited to see the campaign really start to take shape. I never thought that I would apply all the things I have been taught over the last four years so much until I started this class.

Check back for more on Prelude PR’s campaign and the next step in the ROPES process-Planning!

For more information about me follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn!

R is for Research. The First Step in the ROPES Process.

From my freshman year in the Manship School I have heard the numerous stories about public relations campaigns. Some stories were good and others made me a little worried about taking the class. Now that I am in campaigns, I have realized that there is no way to really prepare for this class. Everyone’s experience is different depending on the group and the client. Now that I am about a month into campaigns, it is really starting to pick up speed.

Last week my group and I chose a logo for our campaign team. We chose the name Prelude Public Relations for our “firm.” Below is our logo. We chose the name Prelude Public Relations because we thought that campaigns and this project are preludes to our future as public relations practitioners.

After coming up with the name for our firm, the next step was to create a research report for our campaign. Throughout my time in the Manship School the ROPES process has been taught in numerous classes. When creating an outline, we decided that following the steps of the ROPES process was the best idea for developing our research reports. The first step was compiling research about our client, Louisiana Delta Service Corps. This type of research is known as secondary research. The main type of information that was gathered was background information and the internal structure of the organization. The next step was to do a situational analysis and establish the primary problem we were trying to help Louisiana Delta Service Corps fix. After completing this research, we looked into the target audience for Louisiana Delta Service Corps. Once these steps in the research process were completed we began our own primary research.

The main goal of our primary research was to establish the level of knowledge and awareness the target audience had about Louisiana Delta Service Corps. We developed a survey using SurveyMonkey to obtain information about our target audience’s level of awareness.

I really enjoyed working on the research report. I personally have never created one before so I am glad to now have this experience to take into the work force.

Research is such a crucial part of a public relations campaign. I did not realize until we were outlining the research report how much research we had already done, especially background research on Louisiana Delta Service Corps and AmeriCorps.

My group and I have already done some work on the O in ROPES, objectives, and hope to begin working on the programming element of the ROPES process very soon.

For more information about me or my service learning project follow my Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn!

Off to a Good Start

This week was the start of our group public relations campaign. I have been grouped with 5 other girls and I am really excited about working with them. We have been partnered with Louisiana Delta Service Corps. 

What is Louisiana Delta Service Corp you ask? Well I had the exact same question. They are great non-profit organization and AmeriCorps program. They help to place corps members into different member organizations all over the state of Louisiana.

Our initial meeting with our client was great! Betsy Irvine is going to be our main contact person and I think she is going to be a great person to work with. One of the main points Ms. Irvine made in our meeting was that Louisiana Delta Service Corps and AmeriCorps are the best kept secrets. I only knew about AmeriCorps because I had a friend who worked with them for a few years in New Orleans. Everyone has heard of Teach For America and the Peace Corps, but not that many people know about the opportunities that are available through AmeriCorps and Louisiana Delta Service Corps. Because of this our main objective with our campaign is to increase awareness and knowledge of Louisiana Delta Service Corps and the opportunities they offer.

During our meeting Ms. Irvine was telling us about several of the projects that they have members working on. One that I found especially interesting was the Edible School Yard. It is located at a the Samuel J. Green Charter School in New Orleans and they have an organic garden on the campus. But what is the coolest thing about the Edible School Yard is that every lesson is taught using the garden. From English to science, the teachers use the garden to teach the students and they even use the food from the garden in the cafeteria. It just sounded like such an interesting and innovative project. We hope to be able to take a trip down to visit several of the sites in New Orleans and I hope we get to see the Edible School Yard!

I have interned with a few non-profits before but they are both in the healthcare industry so I am excited to see another type of non-profit and see what they are doing for the community. I am really interested in working in the non-profit sector when I graduate so I am glad to be getting even more experience to enter the “real world” with.

Though we are only in the initial planning stages of our campaign, I can tell that it is going to be a lot of work but I am excited for the challenge and the opportunity to gain new public relations experiences!