PR Exam Study Guide

Name McGuire's nine (9) Hierarchy of Outcomes/Effects and define them

A Hierarchy of Outcomes An organization knows they need help with public relations, but it is PR's job to form a strategy that will lead to meaningful results for the organization. Nine Outcomes: 1. Tuning in 2. Attending 3. Liking 4. Comprehending 5. Learning 6. Agreeing 7. Remembering 8. Acting 9. Proselytizing (recruiting) Tuning In: Exposing people to messages. Attending: Getting people to pay attention. Liking: Need your message to be likable. Comprehending: Effective communication requires comprehension. Learning: Helping publics acquire relevant skills. (how to open a retirement account). Agreeing: Once they know how to do something, you have to make them want to do it. Remembering: Building in reminders for people to do what they were taught. Acting: Changing someones behavior. Behavior is what matters most- the act of actually getting the flu shot is the goal of everything up until this step. Proselytizing: People encourage others to do as they have learned. (Ice bucket challenge going viral). McGuire's Hierarchy of effects for planning: 1. List what will help you avoid mistakes. 2. List what will help you identify objectives. 3. List serves as a reminder to be realistic about expected outcomes. Avoid setting goals at one eleven (ex: liking) when what you and your client really want is effectiveness at a greater level (ex: acting) EXAMPLE: you VIEW messages telling you to get the flu shot. you PAY ATTENTION because you hate being sick. the messages HOLD YOUR INTEREST because you think about the risks and benefits. you UNDERSTAND what getting a flu shot entails. you LEARN where you can receive one. you AGREE that its a good idea. you get an email REMINDER to go get one. you walk into the clinic and GET A FLU SHOT! you TELL YOUR FAMILY to get theirs too.

Define and explain corporate social responsibility.

Corporate social responsability (CSR) is when companies commit corporate resources to the benefit of society and the environement. Contributions can be: -financial donations -employee time -socially beneficial business practices For-profit companies are balancing their need to make money with their responsibility as corporate citizens. Companies must be loyal to their communities/ environment but also their employees and shareholders.

Define and explain the difference (with some detail) between internal publics and external publics. Provide examples.

Employees and members are almost always thought of as internal publics. Internal = inside the company. External publics are outside of the organization but still have shared interests. Internal and external: -Employees and members are almost always thought of as internal publics. -External publics are outside of the organization

Define and explain with some detail News Driven Relationships, Commerce-Driven Relationships (such as B2C, B2B, Employee Relations, Investor Relations) and Issues-Driven Relationships.

NEWS-DRIVEN RELATIONSHIPS: News is the currency of public relations. Getting your organization seen. Media relations: Sometimes news media comes to you for a story, sometimes you go to them to get coverage. -Pitching: when PR people encourage the news media to cover stories involving their organization. -Newsworthiness determines if they use the story or not. -Empathizing with reporters: understanding their audience. -Making yourself useful: help get journalists access to your organizations information and resources for the story. -Media catching: journalists can post questions online so anyone anywhere with helpful info can respond. -Story placement: getting your story a good spot for coverage. COMMERCE DRIVEN RELATIONSHIPS: Driven by money. -B2C: Business- to- consumer Businesses selling directly to consumers. (Amazon) -B2B: Business- to- business Business people from different companies or organizations having relationships. (A business hiring a consulting company to do work for them) -B2B communication. In a 2013 survey, researchers found that "B2B buying is highly personal- even more so than B2C buying- due to the level of personal risk buyers feel." Employee Relations: Healthy relations with internal publics, such as employees, are prerequisites for healthy relations with external publics. Benefits of workplace trust: -Greater profitability -Higher return on shareholder investment -Decreased turnover of top performers -Increased employee engagement -Heightened customer service -Expanded staff well-being -More collaboration and teamwork -Higher productivity B2C = external public B2B = external public Employees = internal publics Investor Relations: Management of relationships between an organization and publics in the financial community (investors, analysts, etc.) It Is one of the most valued functions among job titles with the word "relations" in them. ISSUE DRIVEN RELATIONSHIPS: Relationships with customers, employees, etc. may be driven by money, but also driven by where the organization stands on issues that affect human and natural resources. Some companies exist only for the purpose of addressing social or environmental issues.They exist to make a difference. -Nonprofits -Volunteers -Donors Brought together by a common issue.

Define with some detail owned, paid,shared, and earned media. Give examples.

Owned, Paid, Shared, and Earned Media: -Social media in particular have changed how we share information. -Today's public relations professionals seek to earn followers, fans, likes, search engine rankings and positive reviews, in addition to earning new coverage. OWNED MEDIA: organizations own the channels, so they more or less control the message and its dissemination. In traditional media, owned channels include: -Newsletters -Corporate video -Brochures -Direct mail -Voicemail messaging systems -Intranets -Websites and brochureware PAID MEDIA: Advertising. Product and brand advertising are designed primarily to help sell products and services. Corporate advertising is designed to promote the organization as a whole. -banner ads -targeted emails -pay-per-click -native advertising SHARED MEDIA: Sharing articles, etc. with people. Big implications for organizations when they are the source or subject of stories and links being shared. Some of the most meaningful PR outcomes still depend on earning the respect of influential media gatekeepers. EARNED MEDIA: Publicity. It's not bought, its earned. Google- when more people use a certain website, they push it to the top (SEO).

How is the field of Public Relations different from the field of Marketing?

PR is the umbrella that marketing falls under it. PR is driven by the people, marketing is driven for the people. PR is about people, marketing is about profit. PR can be more objective. Advertising and marketing overlap with public relations a lot. Many of the same tools and skills apply. ALL THREE WORK TO PROMOTE AN ORGANIZATION AND ITS PRODUCTS, SERVICES, ETC. Public relations differs in 3 ways: -in its organizations -publics -relationships Organizations: Marketing and advertising promote a company's products and services, while PR promotes its offerings AND the company as a whole. Publics: Ads and marketing for organizations want to persuade audiences to buy stuff. PR is responsible for building and maintaining relationships with publics even if they never buy anything from the organization. Relationships: In ads and marketing, relationships are means to an end- the end being a sale. In PR, maintaining relationships is an end in itself- the success or failure depends on healthy working relationships with all sorts of publics. Marketing requires a lot of research. Professional Convergence: -Publicity and advertising can be used to support the marketing of consumer products -Marketing tactics can be used to support public relations Advertising: Ideology behind advertising is persuasion. -paid media space -sponsors -persuasion -advertising value: CPM (cost per thousand) -banner ads -pre-roll advertising Marketing: The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. -American Marketing Association

Define public relations, publics, and general public.

Public Relations: management of communication between an organization and its publics, or the strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.(MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL! publics are not trying to hurt each other.) Publics: Groups of people with shared interests. An organization's publics either have an effect on the organization, are affected by the organization, or both -black lives matter -Elon -Elon Lacrosse team (internal public) -Apple -New product team (internal public) General Public: a nonspecific term referring to everyone in the world, making the concept rather meaningless in strategic communication and relationship building

What does RPIE stand for and how does it relate to Public Relations? Explain why each is important to PR.

R-P-I-E Cycle: -Researching -Planning -Implementing -Evaluating RESEARCH: Formative research: When research comes at the beginning of the planning process, or during the implementation of a plan, it is known as formative research. Helps you formulate your plan. Summative research: Summative research is when you've reached an end or stopping point in your campaign and you want to answer the question, "Did it work?"(Public relations campaigns are done in phases. Time-bound) Situation: researching and analyzing the situation to initiate strategic planning. SWOT analysis: Planning the analysis -strengths -weakness -opportunities -threats. Resources for situation research: Gaining a deeper understanding of a situation requires digging for information of substance beyond an internet search. Resources for organization research include written documents to aid learning about an organization: -Any written history -The organization's charter and bylaws -A flow chart or other description of the organizational structure Resources for research on publics: -Results of prior surveys -Publicly available databases, including census data -Market research reports -Media lists -News stories or online reports about key publics -Social media accounts of representatives of key publics -Records an organization has kept on past communication with key publics Qualitative vs. quantitative Secondary and Primary research When public relations strategists explore census data, read market research reports, search for blogs or news stories on the web or review research from past case studies, they are conducting secondary research. Primary research is when you design research and collect your own data for communication planning. Secondary research is when you reuse research and data that has already been collected. Formal and Informal Research: You can conduct informal surveys, informal experiments, and informal content analysis. Two of the biggest factors driving decisions about research are reliability and validity. Reliability refers to how well a particular research technique can be applied multiple times and yield comparable data. Validity refers to the accuracy of a measurement or observation in reflecting what the researcher intends to measure or observe. PLANNING: Strategic Planning: Tactical decision making: daily management and communication without consideration of the strategic objectives, goals, and mission of an organization. Strategic decision making: public relations tactics that are planned and implemented to help an organization pursue its mission and goals. Strategic Planning: Tactics: specific actions you take and items you produce in public relations. Objectives: specific measurable steps that you must achieve to accomplish larger goals. Goals: desired outcomes that directly help an organization pursue its mission. IMPLEMENTING: Implementing the programs and managing the communication that goes along with them. Includes organizational action and communication. Taking Action: Doing the heavy lifting and actually walking the walk. EVALUATION: The process by which we determine the value of our work. We use evaluation to understand our return on investment (time money and energy). We use evaluation to demonstrate to employer and clients the values they receive when they invest in us and our programs. -Evaluation and research go together, and both inform strategic public relations programs. -Evaluation of prior programs can be useful at the very beginning of a new campaign or program. Barcelona Principles: in 2010, delegates from 33 countries met in Barcelona and agreed to the "Barcelona Declaration of research principles" 7 key principles Barcelona Principles: 1.Goal setting and measurement are fundamental. Good goals are supported by SMART objectives. The "M" in SMART stands for measurable. Measurable implies quantifiable. 2. Measure communication outcomes Outputs are tasks that you complete, but the outcomes of public relations programs are changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. -Cognitive -Attitudinal -Behavioral 3. Measure the effect of organizational performance. When goals are marketing-based, the metrics should include the traceable steps in the conversion funnel. -Searching for key terms -Clicking on links -Browsing product offerings -Making purchases 4. Employ both qualitative and quantitative methods. Example: Starbucks YouTube video from Nov. 2013 titled Hiring Veterans and Military Spouses Quantitative results: in 2016, the starbucks channel on youtubue had 93,746 subscribers and this particular video had been viewed 6,215 times Qualitative results include the following comments: -"All lies" -"Ya right they may hire you but your going to make minimum wage and be treated as if you some dumb high school drop out" "Pay taxes properly!" "Cool!" 5. --dont worry about it--- (AVE) 6. Measure social media consistantly with other media channels. Digital media and media monitoring services present new opportunities to use data to improve the evaluation of public relations programs. 7. Ensure measuremnt and evaluation are transparent, consistent, and valid. Transparency in research means that researchers are open and not secretive about their methods.

Name and define the five (5) Major Motivations for Public Relations.

Recruitment Legitimacy Agitation (stir things up) Advocacy Profit Recruitment: PR is involved with the recruitment of volunteers for non profits, new hires, etc. Today's recruiters are just as likely to use social networking sites and other forms of social media to carry out their work as they are more traditional tactics. Legitimacy: PR companies consider it a major achievement to get their client or organization recognized on a big scale = STATUS CONFERRAL (shown on the Today show, in Time, etc.) This type of positive coverage means instant legitimacy. (Search engine optimization making your company stand above the rest, etc.) Agitation: Getting people fired up as has long been a motivation of strategic communicators. Organized agitation evolved into new forms with the rise of the internet. (often organized agitation- KKK) Advocacy: On the flip side of agitation is advocacy. Advocacy in the history of PR has meant promoting persons, organizations, and nations. (Propaganda used to promote the Catholic faith by the catholic church). It is the first professional value listed in the PRSA code of Ethics. Advocacy: This is a value in the PRSA Code of ethics: "we serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent. We provide a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints to aid informed public debate." Profit: One of the largest roles for public relations has been and always will be working in conjunction with advertising and marketing to promote the sale of products, services, and ideas.

When it comes to the objectives of PR campaigns and efforts they need to be SMART. What does SMART stand for?

S: Specific M: Measurable A: Attainable R: Relevant T: Time-bound Public relations campaigns fail because these objectives failed.

Define and explain the difference (with some detail) between quantitative research and qualitative research

When numbers and statistics accompany the results of research, it is considered quantitative. Researcher is distant in this process. Qualitative research answers open-ended questions that cannot be answered with numbers alone. Quantitative research: When numbers and statistics accompany the results of research, it is considered quantitative. -Surveys -Experiments -Treatment and control groups -Content analysis -Words or symbols -Characters -Time and space -Items -Content analysis also can reveal themes and underlying messages in communication. Stacks calls this latent content. Qualitative research answers open-ended questions that cannot be answered with numbers alone. Give researchers a deeper understanding of human behavior. (what motivates people to donate blood?) -Interviews -Focus groups -Direct observation

With some detail define controlled and uncontrolled media. How are they different? How are each of them part of Public Relations?

You need the uncontrolled media for credibility for your controlled media. Controlled media is in the hands of the PR people, uncontrolled is what everyone is saying about you. Controlled media: Internal newsletters are examples because communicators may write and edit, or create and produce, messages exactly how they want them. You are dictating the terms and driving the content. Control where and to whom the messages are sent. Uncontrolled media: TV and radio news, and external websites, as well as blogs and social media that are not produced internally, are a few examples. They are writing about you, and you can't control it. Third-party Credibility: Controlled and Uncontrolled Media: -Credibility is critical -What's more compelling- a statement by chipotle's communications director or a story in USA today? Praise in the uncontrolled media means more to the general public. Praising yourself only goes so far. -The actual effectiveness of third-party credibility is the subject of academic debate and very much... Most communication falls somewhere in between entirely controlled or uncontrolled.