Phones: the most important tool for Public Relations Practitioners in the 21st century!!!

Hi, everyone,

Today I will focus on the use of a telephone in the PR field. While having several technological tools which can be used to perform the communication tasks, a phone remains the more efficient as a phone will confirm if a mail is delivered, will gain time when something needs to be done or to 

confirm an information about particular issue.

A phone is the most important tool is the basic tool in the PR field. There are so many tasks which need to be achieved with the help of phone calls. During my placement, I have used the phone for different tasks. I was given the task to make an update of all general directors of parastatal bodies in the country. To be able to complete this particular task, I had to call a great number of those organisations, ask for the actual general director or president and update the information in the company’s database for later use. I've made phone calls for about three days where I spoke to several people to obtain specific information. Another important use of the telephone is when I had to call journalists for the conference. We had to call them and if ever they were not available I had to call back in order to know if they are attending the event.

Phone used in the company

During my placement, one thing for sure working is not framed by office hours. Once, there was a press release from one of the clients which came out at the end of the day and I had sent the press release to media outlets. Then, I need to call the journalists 20 minutes later to make sure they received  the press release and I need  to send another one in the case they do not obtain the document. This task lasts at least one hour after office hours because it is very difficult to talk to a journalist at 5p.m as they need to prepare the late news.

This was quite interesting to see how the use of a phone is important in the PR field as everybody considered the telephone to be outdated in present days where Internet is become the mainstream for communication. This need to be done as journalists are so busy that they do not have enough time look at their mails and in such case they can miss one important information given by a client. So, it is the responsibility of a PR agent to make things happen.

Hope you enjoyed reading this third post.

Cedric

Conferences not an easy task!!

Hi everyone,

Today I will talk about organising a conference. During my place I have the chances to participate to a press conference and to experience the works linked to the organisation of an event.

The journalists were invited to make a media coverage as it was for the Omnicane Republic Cup 2015 and it was something quite important for the client. My task was to call each journalist a day before the event in order to confirm whether they got their invitations and also ask them if they will attend the conference. This task was time consuming as I must called at least 20 media outlets, talk to each journalist and in the case they did not receive their invitation, send another one and later call them to confirm if they received the latter and see whether they are attending the event or not. 

On the day of the press conference, my tasks was to  make sure that the media kits are up to the standards and to check whether there are no missing document. When the journalists arrived I had to fulfilled the list of attendance, show them where the conference room is and give them the media kits before the beginning of the conference and fulfilled their needs. During the latter, I must take notes of the speech, the persons present and their interest in the new agreement and the features for the Cup.

Journalists waiting for the beginning of the conference

After the conference I must write a debriefing of the event with the notes taken and also monitor a media clipping about the conference in all the media outlet in order to know how the conference is describe, its impact in terms of visibility for both the cup and for the client’s company.

In theory, press conference seems to have a lot of work but in practice, there is a lot of work which must be done precisely so that such event do not fail to deliver its final massage. Precision is very important and each PR practitioner should be able to deal with it wherever there is a lot of stress behind so that there is no negative impact from the journalists or from the client himself.

So much work for only 30 minutes of a conference.

Thank you for reading

Cedric

When practice differs from theory

Hi everyone,

Here is my first post and I am very excited to share with you my placement experience during my last semester.

I am currently doing my placement at Imagine Communication, which is specialised in Public relations consultancy and media relation. During the internship I have a look of how theory and practicality differ. In books, we rather learn how the basic of public relations; how to make a PR plan, media release and so on but books never told students how petty things have significant effects during an event or in daily tasks.

There are so many tasks to do while being in the PR field especially when doing media relations. In media relations we have to consider all press media and to listen to all radio station to know whether the media is writing or talking about one of the company’s client. And I can assure that each day there are new information about one of their clients. Following these new updates we must write press summaries, radio transcripts and collect each and every pieces of information in all media outlets in order to send it to the client so as they can have an update about their visibility in the press and also what is being done in their industry. This task can be difficult as there is a daily deadline which needs to be met according to the client requirement.

Newspapers of the day

While in books they do tell us that PR is a continuous work, they do not tell us that there is much thing to do for one particular client and that it is every day and at times some nights a constant work for the same client. This was a critical issue during the first few days as we were not trained for such hard work but there is a need to adapt and to coop with the requirements of the company.

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy it!!!