Many people join sororities during their four years of college and then once they graduate, they are lost in the transition.  They move to new exciting places, get new email addresses, and the sororities lose touch with their beloved former members.  Well, Kappa is doing something to reconnect with these lost members.  The six degrees of Kappa Kappa Gamma is spreading throughout chapters like wildfire.

Kappa has sent out an online form with a search engine where you can search for members that you know who have different contact information and/or have simply stopped considering themselves associated with our sorority.  The idea is that we will be able to reconnect with sisters all over the country, possible even the world.  Nancy O’dell, of Access Hollywood was a member of the Clemson Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma and she agreed to send out a video explaining the Six Degrees of Separation theory and how it applies to Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Our national headquarters have been able to get in touch with countless lost alumni since the release of the video.  I think this is great PR for Kappa Kappa Gamma because it shows that we care about the the members of this organization, both active and inactive, and want to create a sense of community with all former and current members.

Tactics are public relations action designed to have a particular effecto on an organization’s relationship with a public. 

Tactics can be seen as messages and tactics and channels that can be taken are SPECIAL EVENTS, CONTROLLED MEDIA, AND UNCONTROLLED MEDIA.

SPECIAL EVENTS- “actions speak louder than words”.  special events weave together the message and the channel.  This occurs when organization offers a special deal, etc… that will strengthen its relationship with its public.

Controlled Media- advertising, employee newsletters, speeches, brochures, and websites.  We control what is being published, therefore we control our image. 

UNCONTROLLED MEDIA- the news media that we cannot control.  credibility is heightened with uncontrolled media because the organization is not controling the message. 

Successful Tactics:

• part of a written pr plan that is tied to an organization’s mission
• target different publics one at a time
• based on research about a particular public’s values, interests, etc.
• send a clear message
• evaluated as they are performed and after they are executed

Their are different channels that you use for the different publics of each organization.  What may be the most successful tactic used with employees may not work for the community groups in the area. 

Accomplishing the task involves 6 steps: 1. delegation 2. deadlines 3. quality control 4. communication within the team 5. communication with clients or supervisers 6. constant evaluation.

When looking at job requirements for Public Relations positions, there seems to be a common theme in what companies are looking for. Most are looking for strong writing skills and communication skills. Most ads that I saw also emphasized some sort of self motivation and a good attitude. All these skills make sense. What I thought was most interesting however, was how hard it became to search for a job that was exclusively PR. Most companies were looking for their goto guy that would manage the marketing, media, or journalism side of their organization as well along with the area of public relations. I just thought this was ironic because we had just participated in class discussion about how these are NOT the same thing. It’s interesting that even people in these areas can’t seem to separate PR from marketing, advertising, journalism, or media.

Chapter Thirteen goes more in-depth about the relationship between Public Relations and Marketing. The funny thing about this chapter was that it was almost like an overview of my principles of advertising course that I took last spring. The book says that it is so important to read about and understand the key concepts of marketing because Marketing and many aspects of Public Relations focus on the same thing. Public Relations Professionals used to be able to rely on mass marketing to get their word out. However with the rise of mass media, audiences have become can be reached on one television station. Even though audiences have become fragmented, they are still easily and more efficiently reached due to the increase in channels through mass media. With the fall of mass marketing, the PR world has adopted a new kind of marketing that is “consumer-focused”. This uses “a variety of media to build relationships with individuals”. This is where Integrated Marketing Communications has become really important. The rise of consumer-focused marketing has changed the face of Public-Relations from an afterthought in the minds of advertising agencies, to an integral part of the advertising process. The idea of combining marketing and public relations is that if we build relationships with consumers, we can better understand how to persuade the publics to purchase products.  On the other hand.  The article by Bill Sledzic talked about what PR is not and his main focus was on the fact that Public relations and Marketing are not the same thing.  Public Relations uses tools like advertising, selling, public affairs, media relations, publicity, and marketing but in know way are they the same thing.  because PR reaches a far broader scope.

Chapter one talked about how important it was to understand what PR really means. The word seems to be tossed around quite a bit and few people actually understand what Public Relations really is. Rex Harlow defined public relations as a management function that “helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding,acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics.

Public Relations Defined

PUBLIC: any group of people who share common interests or values in a particular situation-especially interests or values they might be willing to act upon.

STAKEHOLDER: Public that holds a stake in an organization

PR IS:-a management function

-two way communication

-a planned activity

-research based social science

-socially responsible

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT-well-managed organizations know they must have good relationships with publics important to their success.

A profession gaining in respect

Historically, PR’s goal was persuasion, information dissemination, or propoganda…

their is a mutual understanding gaining between publics and management.

The Hunt-Grunig Models of Public Relations

1. press agentry/publicity model: getting favorable coverage from media

2. public information model: dissemination of objective and accurate information

3. two-way asymmetrical model: info gathered from publics to persuade publics. “selfish” model

4. two-way symmetrical model:two way communication as a means of conflict resolution

Public Relations and marketing

talks about using PR as a part of IMC integrated marketing communications

ADVERTISING-the use of controlled media in an attempt to influence action of publics

Marketing- process of researching, creating, refining, and promoting a product or service to targeted consumers.

PUBLIC RELATIONS- management of relationships between organization and its publics.

Why a Public Relations Career?

PR agencies-companies that contract to provide pr services for others

Corperations-pr units within companies

Government: tax-payer supported units within government agencies

Nonprofit Orgs- PR units that serve not-for-profit orgs

Independent PR consultants- self employed pr practitioners.

The Public Relations Process

four step model- involves Research, Planning, Communication, Evaluation.

dynamic model- not necessarily going in that order (?)

The Role of Values in Public Relations- both models for PR are missing values