The Last Hurrah : Making Recommendations

The Last Hurrah : Making Recommendations

The last day of my internship is long gone and my report well underway, so I figure now is a good time to stop and take a look back at my notes and musing of what I think should be different about PR at Netball WA.

In writing the organisation overview, thoroughly reading the marketing and communications plan and other official documents like the corporate sponsor introduction booklet ('Becoming a Partner Booklet') and the five year strategic plan (2013-2018), some major things stuck out that needed to be addressed to maximise the good that PR could do for Netball WA.

For starters, there were soooo many channels; right from the normal stuff like a range of social media accounts and websites, through to a whole range of regularly sent electronic direct mail. On top of this, across four sectors of the workplace, almost every employee had regular contact with a range of external key publics – from parent of developing players to corporate sponsors. These communications take place without monitoring or significant training from the communications team, meaning that communications coming out of other departments is varied and the communications experience at each interaction differs.

Another strange aspect of the organisation’s operations was the four key pillars of objectives and the four functional sectors of the workforce do not link well, it seemed very odd to have such a serve an imbalance of resources for each of the organisations key objective areas.

Another aspect was the residual impacts of the ‘go with the gut’ communications strategy that was in place at Netball WA until recently. While the team have developed a five-year communications strategy that is currently implemented and seems to suffice, there is very little reference to any research or environmental scans, meaning that decisions to implement or alter strategies are often made with little background knowledge about organisations implementing similar tactics.

As well as a revamp of internal communications to achieve streamlining of work efforts and follow on communications coming out of the organisation, the communications strategy objectives are not SMART (which isn’t surprising due to the insufficient research done prior to their creation).

It was definitely a learning process from day one where operations seemed to be effective and smooth, to the final day when I had notice a number of potential changes. It takes a critical eye to see through seemingly effective operations and onto the areas in which it could be improved.

GS,GA,WA,C,WD,GD,GK,PR : The Role of PR

Public Relations. 
By third year we know what's up.
We know that Grunig and Hunt describe it as the "management of communication between an organization and its publics," (Grunig & Hunt, 1984), but in layman's terms I often find myself describing PR as "professional communication", "everything from internal communications, to media relations to event management," and every so often I spout, "PR people manage all the communication between a business or an organisation and the people who are interested in or affected by their business/organisation, we kinda make sure that everyone knows what they need to or want to know."

Going deeper than this might require me to explain that each piece of communication is considered, planned and implemented depending on who the message is aimed at and the unique way that this specific audience consumes their information, but usually people aren't that interested.

I suppose my main point of reflection here is that PR is a very diverse field of practice, my internship placement has only confirmed this as truth.

The structure of the coms team at Netball WA does not have a specific role PR role. Working underneath the Communications GM are a whole team of people dedicated to different areas, who I have noted each take on a lat least a little bit of PR in their role.

Media & Communications Manager:
At Netball WA this probably the closest thing to a 'PR person' that they have. He deals with, of course, media enquiries, writes releases, liaises with journalists and briefs professional players on their public appearances and speeches. However, he also goes beyond his media role and, in 2015 when the Netball WA coms team were originally formed, I believed that is was mostly this guy who developed an official "Media and Communications Strategy" detailing a coms plan complete with goals and objectives linked to Netball WA's five-year strategic plan.

Digital Marketing Coordinator:
As Digital Marketing Coordinator, predictably, this guy covers off on the online marketing content and also advises on and coordinates more traditional marketing channels. On top of this, this role includes keeping tabs on online sentiment regarding Netball WA including the professional Western Australian Team, West Coast Fever. This media monitoring component also involves crafting responses to rumours, queries and feedback through online channels. This guy also works together with the Membership and Events coordinator on promotion and communications in this area.

Graphic Designer: 
The Graphic Designer role is crucial in all of the communications, this role is probably the least 'PR' in the coms team, however, still has a vital impact on the brand of all content produced and each design decision helps to build and maintain a brand and organisation image.

The following roles, according to Netball WA, are not included in the communications team, however I have noted that they are very involved in PR activities.

Sponsorship and Corporate Sales Manager: 
This role is highly involved with a number of very influential stakeholders and is the face of corporate and sponsorship communication. This is arguably one of the most vital PR roles at Netball WA, without the major sponsorships secured and stable, their is no funding for any organisational activities.


Membership and Events Coordinator:
The Membership and Events Coordinator is also a vital PR role as it is the one that faces out to the some of the most engaged stakeholders. This role is provides a consistent reply to member and events queries, and also liaises with the Digital Marketing Coordinator and the rest of the communications team to deliver consistent messages across the owned, earned and paid communications channels (including media releases, social media content, the Netball WA and West Coast Fever websites and direct email communications.)

During the course of my time at WA I jumped between these roles, among other things I reviewed membership feedback for the Membership and Events Coordinator, I created program tailored marketing strategies for the Digital Marketing Coordinator, I made wrote media releases and listed media contacts for the Media and Communications Manager and did competitor and legal research for the whole team.

All of these things were PR, and yet they all fitted under the umbrella's of each role in the team. Perhaps a better awareness of PR theory and best practice would help the team at Netball WA to better coordinate across departments and allow for more succinct and effective justification of funding for PR activities? Hopefully my report will highlight some of the ways they can apply PR to increase the effectiveness of their already (unconsciously?) implemented PR strategies.

While it's not immediately apparent, even to the people who are coordinating and implementing PR activities, PR is not an option, you either choose to do it well or leave it by the wayside to be done badly.

References:
Grunig & Hunt (1984). Managing Public Relations. p. 4.
Netball WA Staff Contacts. http://wa.netball.com.au/contact-us/staff-contacts/.

Game On : Ethics and Business Partnerships

Game On : Ethics and Business Partnerships:

Last weekend I attended the 'Smarter than Smoking Western Australian Netball League Grand Final' as part of my internship. While that name is very detailed and all-encompassing, from this point on I'll refer to the event as the WANL Grand Final, for obvious reasons.

But, as you'll notice in the Netball WA content, the 'Smarter than Smoking' name stuck at all times, as was vital for their agreement with Healthway as a major partner. While event naming rights, signage, uniform logos and MC mentions on game day were all expected and rather standard, there was a little more to this partnership than was originally obvious.

On Tuesday, back in the offices at the State Netball Centre, I was tasked with writing a follow-up media release for the weekend's events. Great! But there was a twist. Another part of Healthway's partnership states that a certain amount of content each season must be released from Netball WA promoting Healthways messaging, in this case the "Smarter than Smoking" message. It felt a little sinister, a little sneaky even, having to find an angle that somehow worked this message into the release. As a Journalism/PR double major student I felt especially like I was going against my media ethics training.

I was curious, not having heard about this kind of content-based agreement within a partnership before, so I asked a few questions. According to the media relations officer at Netball WA, this kind of sponsorship is negotiated between the two organisations, with Netball WA preferring this method, as opposed to receiving Healthway content straight from the horses mouth, and then having to attempt to put a netball twist on things.

Which made sense, this way, we chose a netball angle and subtly worked in the smarter than smoking message. However in some ways it might have been better for it to be less subtle, and more obviously (and ethically) a partnership deal.

Having considered all this, I gave the release a good old crack. My morals aligned with Healthway messaging, and the fact that these athletes can actually attribute a lot of their on-court success to their diligence and dedication with healthy choices, including training, diet, and other healthy habits, off the court. Given those facts, I didn't feel like such a propaganda pusher, but I definitely would've had a different feel about things had the organisations and their goals not been so well matched and the messaging not so well aligned with my own morals.

I guess this is the kind of ethical issue that you take on a case to case basis, however my personal stance remains that transparency and clarity about paid/advertorial content is always for the best.

The Importance Of Research

The importance of research;

Until recently my placement organisation Netball WA had been essentially flying from the seat of their pants in terms of communications strategy. While what they describes as a “going with the gut” feeling has evidentially not had any serious ramifications on their business success, it’s an approach they finally reconsidered. As far as I can gather from chatter with my supervisor (Netball WA’s Communications Manager) and those who work under him, the communications team was a one or two man show up until 2015. With the addition of four extra staff members, a ‘Communications Team’ appeared, complete with a Media Relations Officer, Social Media and Marketing Officer, Graphic Designer/Photographer and Events Manager/Membership Coordinator.

Under the Events Manager/Membership Coordinator I completed one of my first major projects at my internship, while that was a week or two ago, I was recently reminded of the importance of the work I was doing whilst in a Public Relations Planning and Evaluation seminar earlier this week. The seminar, entitled ‘making a case for communication’, explored the ways that research and evaluation in PR can help to justify the existence of communications teams in businesses and organisations.

Clearly, a core part of the business at Netball WA is to ensure the WA netball team (West Coast Fever) have well-engaged and happy members. The work that I was doing, while rather laborious, was to analyse membership feedback data from the recently finished 2016 season, compile trends and finally recommend some changes to the way the memberships were handled based on the feedback data. This kind of research is an example of the data and analysis that can contribute to ensuring that West Coast Fever members are well engaged and happy with their membership experiences. Not only does this kind of communication and research help to achieve this business objective, it allows a concrete connection to be made between the quality of this communication and the rate of member retention and registration. This kind of data gathering and analysis is not only a great example of a feedback channel in operation (part of the 2-way symmetric model of communication in action), but also a fine example of a way that professional communications justifies itself and it’s place in a business or organisation.

While back in first year, research may have seemed like an inconvenient prequel to an exciting PR plan, looking back through my third-year goggles I can definitely see that not only is research a fundamental foundation to the formation of clear communications goals and objectives, but it is essential also as an ongoing review and monitoring activity. Without this continuous reflection upon our PR efforts and their results, the efforts themselves are nullified in the way that we have no record of their effectiveness, and their results are practically invisible to CEO’s and organisational boards.

Research is an not only an essential starting point, but it comes into play at both the mid, end and review points of any PR activity in the forms of all kinds of feedback lines as well as the day-to-day monitoring conducted by PR practitioners.

This has finally solidified for me having seen the kind of tasks performed daily by the Netball WA Communications Team, without research no plan or proposal can be justified.