Case Study: American Red Cross

An organization as large and influential as the American Red Cross inevitably attracts lots of online attention. A few hundred comments appear every day and the organization recognizes that any and all of them can carry meaning and weight. To understand what is being said, Wendy Harman, the organization’s senior associate for new media integration, reads all the posts and comments she can find daily. Even those with few readers or limited engagement are important because many of those are writ- ten by people who are as passionate about the organization as anyone, and all of them have influence with someone.

Monitoring hundreds of blog posts about the Red Cross is a key component of a public relation practioner’s work to identify influencers in online communities. Every day she uses online search engines like Technorati to find blog posts and comments about the Red Cross. Technorati has a ranking system, where a blog with a higher ranking indicates that the blog has many other blogs linking back to that blog. Yet, for the Red Cross, even a blog with just a few links can be important and influential.

Social media is changing the way communications professionals within the American Red Cross are conducting public relations. This new media channel gives the Red Cross the ability to connect directly with the public in a two way conversation. The ability to set up their own blogs and other social media websites is especially important for the Red Cross when working on disasters or more mundane matters.

Wherever people are publishing, be it a blog post, Facebook or Flickr, there’s a lot of passion about the Red Cross. Whether what is published is negative or positive, Wendy focuses on those who are passionate about the Red Cross to identify key influencers. Measuring passion is complex and requires more focus than just a ranking number.

The Red Cross’ social media initiative has more than met its initial goals. Online conversations are monitored and tracked, and the Red Cross has found its voice online and not only regularly engages in conversations, but also has paced itself at the hub through proactive social media campaigns and initiatives. The organization’s social media program has enabled the Red Cross to track sentiment about Red Cross related issues, respond to misconceptions when they emerge, and support praise for the Red Cross where it exists.

The Red Cross’ social media awareness strategy, made up of a variety of communication and collaboration techniques, is resulting in new levels of success with its stakeholders. By adopting a policy of connecting with interested and engaged influencers, the Red Cross is maximizing the public relations value of new social media tools.

Week 11: Asian Pubic Relations Management

I think it is important that public relations practitioners develop an understanding of not only how cultures differ, but also how cultural differences impact public relations practices.

As mentioned in the book, I agree that language and government plays a huge part in public relations practices. For Singapore, she has a multi ethnic and multicultural environment and, Public Relations were practiced since the occupation of British Colonists here. Multinationals brought big public relations budgets to Singapore and these monies attracted multinational public relations and advertising agencies. At the same time, local consultancies spruced up to serve local industries that either could not afford the big consultancies or believed their business plans were better entrusted to well-established native speakers. The dramatic economic changes of the early 1980s led to tremendous growth in certain industries. Until then, the government used to propagate the information using a one-way communication model hence, the flow of information was top down. Since then, with rapid economic changes which includes trade expansion, the entry of multinational companies in Singapore and the rise of middle class consumer markets, began to shift in the level of importance and nature of public relations. Public relations became an increasingly decision-making function. As mentioned by Joseph (1991), the establishment and development of stock markets throughout Asia, together with the privatization of government-run companies, have helped to drive the need for corporate positioning, financial communication and investor relations programs. Restrictive government legislation and pressure from special interest groups has increased the demand for crisis communication and issues management as well as high level public affairs programs. Hence, with the rapid expansion of communication and media technologies including satellites, computers and cable enabled television technologies have also aided the growth of the public relations profession including increased recognition of public relations as a management function.

In conclusion, as the world becomes more and more interdependent in many ways, the use of culture as a key consideration in management communication planning is inevitable. Public relations have become vital for the study of employee communication, community relations, understanding of other stakeholders interests, awareness, perceptions and information needs. This critical information is necessary for strategic planning of communication campaigns, more so in communicating with multicultural societies and for cross-cultural communication.

Week 10: New Media and Public Relation.

New media, also known as the alternative media is the up and rising trend of this century. With regards to public relations, Marketers and public relations practitioners today are confronted with an astounding array of new communications channels which they have to face everyday i.e: mobile applications, new softwares to read e-mails, social networking sites and more. Internet-based social media tools including blogs, online video and social networks are giving voice to the opinions of millions of different consumers all over the world. While mainstream media continues to play a vital role in the dissemination of information, even these traditional channels are increasingly being influenced by online conversations. The “new influencers” are beginning to tear at the fabric of marketing as it has existed for 100 years, giving rise to a new style of marketing that is characterized by conversation and community.

Here's an interesting case study on Coca-Cola.

"Despite some initial misgivings, Coca- Cola demonstrated its appreciation of the role on the new influencer by its willing- ness to embrace and support Eepybird in its ongoing videos showing the effect of mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. Created by two independent artists in the woods of Maine, the Eepybird videos have generated billions of impressions and illustrated the power of the new influencers."

At Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, though, the mood wasn’t so exuberant. Coke lawyers fretted about liability problems from amateur chemists trying to duplicate the experiment. When the Journal called for comment, a spokeswoman said the “crazi- ness with Mentos ...doesn’t fit with the brand personality” of Coke. “We would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it,” she said.

But Coke’s interactive marketers saw a gold mine. Sales of Diet Coke, which had been flat for some time, spiked between five and 10%, the company’s interactive director told MediaPost. In August, they contacted Eepybird asking how they could help pull off more experiments. Voltz and Grobe, who were tired of buying out the local grocery’s stock of soda, were happy to accept. In October, they recorded “The Domino Effect,” involving 251 bottles, more than 1,500 candies and a network of tripwires, pulleys and nozzles that sent choreographed foam spewing in every direction.

The Internet ate it up. Google and Yahoo featured the clip on their video home pages. Voltz and Grobe personally contacted dozens of bloggers who had helped along the first experiment, encouraging them to link to the latest video. Eepybird was flooded with traffic, more media outlets called and offers began coming in from casinos and corporate events departments asking for com- mand performances.

Coke supported the experiment with unlimited supplies of beverages, ad buys on Google and a sponsored contest with Voltz and Grobe as judges. Coke got 1.5 billion ad.

In this case, I feel that social media is rapidly becoming a core channel for disseminating information. Fifty-seven percent of this group of early social media adopters reported that social media tools are becoming more valuable to their activities, After having doen some research, I found our that blogs, online video and social networks are currently the most popular social media tools, but public relations and corporate communications professionals are using a wide variety of means to reach audiences, depending on their unique situations. Therefore, social media are clearly changing the way we think about media and influence

Week 9: Reputation Management & Crisis Perspective

1. Reputation Management

Reputation Management is defined as the process of tracking an organization's actions and other people's opinions about those action.

As the saying goes, success does not happen overnight but failure does. And, critical moments for business and other organizations never goes away. So, in this case reputation management comes in 3 forms: Building, Maintenance and Recovery!

• Building reputation for a business that is just getting started

• Maintaining reputation means keeping the company’s good image superior in the public eye is called

• Recovery will only happen if the organization has gotten bad reputation, then the recovery portion is important.

I have identified 1 area of reputation management - through power. Attaining power and gaining influence has always been problematic in the public relations line. According to Scott Cutlip (1997), some critics charge that public relations exerts power through propaganda techniques that distort society to serve narrow and even dysfunctional interests. And according to the survey conducted by Berger and Reber (2006), the most important issue in public relations listed by professionals was “to gain a seat at the decision-making table”. Hence, the failure of securing a seat at the decision- making table will most probably affect an organization negatively, not only, an individual public relations professionals’ self- esteem but also the profession’s legitimacy as a strategic management function. And yes, I agree that power plays an important role in public relations as it helps to get things done.

2. Crisis!

Barton (1993) defines crisis as a major, unpredictable event that has potentially negative result which can badly damage the reputation of an organization.

I came across this case study: Massacre at Virginia Tech.

The shootings caused a major uproar. And during this devastating crisis, many schools promoted safety campaigns. Some of these campaigns are trying to increase awareness that violence can happen anywhere by reducing optimistic bias in their students. The purpose of these safety campaigns is to widen the gap between conflicting cultural worldviews by reducing optimistic bias, and thereby, increase the likelihood of a violent act. Schools across the region used the shooting as a learning experience as to what could have been done better to protect the people on campus that day.

To better manage this crisis and restore trust, many universities have implemented new ways of warning faculty, students, and staff when there is a violent incident on campus. This consists of sending text messaging blasts and e-mails, along phone calls, and not forgetting television and radio announcements. Universities also made it a point to promote safety on their campuses through brochures distributed in the resident halls. For instance, one of the brochures recommend that students not walk alone after dark and caution students not to stay in academic buildings late at night.

From another point of view, while these campaigns may be well-intentioned, it could have adverse effects. By decreasing optimistic bias the campaigns are encouraging the acceptance that school shooting scan. Essentially, the campaigns created an awareness and remind students they can be shot at school! In this context, terror management studies have repeatedly shown that messages which remind individuals of death cause anxiety. High mortality salience has been shown to increase stereotyping, derogation, hostility, and aggression towards others. I have found out that Miller & Landau (2005) argued that campaigns aimed solely at reducing optimistic bias to encourage self-protective measures could be increasing attacks on alternative worldviews. Hence, those who do not fit the socially constructed norms of the school’s climate will be outcast and diminished from the normal group. These attacks could then encourage a counter attack, potentially to the point at which an individual seeks to eliminate the threatening worldview.

From this case study, I think that crisis management is vital - it has to be handled properly else, though well-intentioned, the campaigns might send out wrong messages, which might cause unnecessary anxiety to the people involved.

Week 8: Public Relations Management In Organization

I agree with what Ms. Tanya always stress, public relations practitioner needs to establish good working relationships and maintain important ties.

As mentioned by Bruning & Ledingham (2000), relationships between an organization and its public audiences have been the focal interest in public relations research and practice.

After having done some research on public relations management, I came across OPR (Organization Public Relationships). So, what is this all about?

Broom, Casey, and Ritchey (1997) define that organization public relationships are represented by the patterns of interaction, transaction, exchange, and linkage between an organization and its publics. So, organization-public relationship is a connection or association between an organization and a public that results from behavioral consequences an organization. Organization Public relationships refer to relationships between the organization and its external publics.

And, EPR (Employee Public Relationships) simply mean that the individual level relationships that develop between employees and external publics. Quoting Hon and J. Grunig’s (1999) perspective and conceptualize EPR as an employee-public relationship is a connection or association between an employee and a member of the public mainly resulting from interpersonal communication that occurs because of behavioral consequences an organization or the public has on the other. Relating this to J. Grunig and Huang’s (2000), dimensions of relationships of trust, satisfaction, and commitment, defined cultivation strategies as “communication methods that public relations people use to develop new relationships with publics and to deal with the stresses and conflicts that occur in all relationships” In this case, employees play a vital role in communicating with customers and, I have come across a selective set of symmetrical communication strategies that are likely to produce relationship outcomes. Several strategies were adopted from interpersonal relationships and conflict resolution theories:

• Access—members of publics or opinion leaders provide access to public relations people. Public relations representatives or senior managers provide representatives of publics similar access to organizational decision-making processes.

• Positivity—anything the organization or public does to make the relationship more enjoyable for the parties involved.

• Openness—of thoughts and feelings among parties involved.

• Assurances—attempts by parties in the relationship to assure the other parties that they and their concerns are legitimate.

• Networking—organizations’ building networks or coalitions with the same groups that their publics do, such as environmentalists, unions, or community groups.

• Sharing of tasks—organizations’ and publics’ sharing in solving joint or separate problems.

These conflict management theories are both 1) integrative as because all parties in a relationship benefit by searching out common or complementary interests and solving problems together through discussion and decision making and, 2) cooperative as the organization and the public work together to reconcile their interests and to reach a mutually beneficial relationship. In general, I think that it in order for an organization to effectively build long-term relationships with customers, it must first develop positive, long-term relationships with employees who interact those customers. Hence, in conclusion, within the relationship management paradigm, public relations is a critical strategic communication management function which will lead to a certain relationship outcome.

Week 7: Mid Semester Break!

Happy Holidays!

Week 6: Strategies to Proactively Manage Activity

Public Relations Strategy

According to the reading, strategy is a key concept within the public relations field.

So, to start off, what is strategy? Oxford dictionary defines strategy as a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim / the art of planning and directing military activity in a war or battle.

And so, what is public relations? “Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. PR is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.” “It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics.”

Strategic planning is crucial in public relations sector because of a few factors.

Firstly, it is too complement the overall business plan of an organization and then, identify ways in which Public relations can help achieve an organization's goals and objectives. Next is to focus and manage all the communications of an organization and also to o ensure maximum benefit from all public relations activities. It can also help educate those within an organisation about the value of Public Relations. So in this case, public relations is more than simply producing publicity material. An organization is only as strong as its reputation. The public relations function is to manage that reputation.

After doing some research, I learned that a good and useful Public Relations Strategy should answer a few questions, for instance: Where are we now?, Where do we want to be?, To whom are we talking (audiences)?, What do we want them to do?, Why do we want them to do it?, What are we going to say to them (messages)?, Where are we going to reach them?, When are we going to reach them?, Which techniques (methods) are we going to use?, How much are we going to spend?, What if there are unforeseen problems?, How did we do?.

I would like to highlight a few interesting parts - Firstly, it would be audiences! From my point of view, I realized that a public relations' practitioner's objective is nearly always about influencing someone to do something. Therefore, it makes sense to identify target audiences as it is a vital part of a strategy (if the people I'm talking too ain't the right person, I might as well forget it, right?). So, next up is to identify the smallest possible groupings of individuals for maximum effect. Now, having identified the audiences, they should be prioritized.

Next interesting part would be the timing part! Research shows that timing is very important because it link specific public relations activities to fixed events in an organization's corporate calendar and it makes no sense in issuing a news release days after an event.

For the part on unforeseen circumstances, I feel that potential problems should be identified and worked on. It is better to be safe than sorry and in this case, contingency planning is crucial! Developing a good and comprehensive strategy is vital as it leads to the success / failure of a designated campaign. Whao, seems like there really is quite a lot to do for a detailed public relations strategic plan!