Social Media and Campaigns

Social media is an ever increasing field that many organizations are turning to and recodnizing its importance in the field of communications. My professor had us create this blog as an assignment to encourage us to get involved in this new medium early.

I can not say I was thrilled with this assignment. I spewnt many hours thinking about how I should be blogging but not actually doing it. I did not feel that I had anything to add to the conversation at this stage in my life. Therefore I dreaded writing my posts, feeling that I was a useless contributor to the world of social media.

When putting together our campaign we used a blog as one of our main tactics. Our research found that a majority of area residents use the internet to get their news. We hoped to link our blog to some of the news posts to get more citizens engaged in the conversation.

During the client presentation we found out that our client was also working with a nation public relations agency. They had also suggested a blog for this foundation.

Apparently the field is jumping on board the world of social media, leaving me and my fears behind. While my blog has not been the most enlightening work ever produced and has not gained much attention or started many conversations, it was an enterence to a growing medium.

The client presentation!

Finally we have the book together and are ready to present it to our client. The foundation we are working for is more conservative so we decked ourselves out in suits and a classic powerpoint and presentation style.

Nerves were high when the met in the lab. The four presenters were pacing with their notes and last minute preparation. However the presenters are all great speakers so while the rest of us were nervous for them we could feel secure in their abilities.

Our contact at the foundation could not make it to the presentation, so she sent a colleague in her place. We were extra concerned because we had not met this member of the client team. However, when she walked in the room wearing jeans we calmed down some. She was professional but not overly intimidating.

The presentation team had their information memorized, so it went smoothly, lasting for about 20 minutes before it was opened to questions.

The client only had a few questions so I hope that was a good sign, meaning that she understood most of the campaign. Overall I think we were all very proud of the effort and just hope that showed in the presentation.

Gantt Chart

With all the tactics out and being finalized, the team split into three groups for the final projects, a budget team, a Gantt chart team and the presentation team. I joined the Gantt chart team.

A Gantt chart lists all the tactics on one side and has the length of the campaign divided into sections on the top. X's are added into the column of the dates that tactic is to be performed.

With three of us on the team this seemed like an easy task. We got together within two days of the assignment and set up the template. Then all that had to be done was get a finalized tactic list and add the X's.

However, with a team of 11 this is not the easiest task. Members of the team kept changing there title or the team would decide to change that tactic to another that we could perform. So we had to wait until the end to get that finalized list. Once we had that the rest of the process was easy. We just added the X's and printed it out.

I have to say it looks really great when printed and is an easy way to show the entire outline of the campaign and when everything should be done.

First edits

My professor is amazing. We gave her the tactics on a Friday and she had them proofed and back to us by Monday. Each team member took their tactics and edited them.

Most of the tactics were okay but we had a few to change. For the intern packet I needed to make the duties within the four heading more concrete. In the first draft those duties were left open in hopes that the interns might write more press releases and public service announcement throughout the actually campaign. However my professor wanted us to do them all.

This required the team to write several more things, which the team leader assigned throughout the group.

I then went in and changed all the create and distribute to just distribute a certain release, pitch or story. This made the outline more hard line. It gives the future interns a better idea of exactly what they will be doing.

The releases, stories and public service announcements that were added were to be done hopefully that night, but the leader gave everyone until Wednesday if they could not do them that day. Crunch time is in full force.

An intern's job?

My main tactic for this campaign was to formulate a plan for interns. A major point of the campaign was that the organization would need extra help to have the time to perform the campaign. We suggested they set up a group of 5 interns.

Theses interns would have the time and ability to send out the information we suggested and perform all other tactics.

We wanted to give the interns information about the company and an outline of what tasks they would be expected to perform. For the company we put together an applications they could use when searching for interns.

The outline was the hardest to pinned down. I wanted to give them the best picture of what they would be expected to do but also leave some leeway for the company to add or subtract duties, without throwing the entire outline off. I decided on four areas for the interns to concentrate, developing relations, executing special events, generating publicity for the foundation and its mission and maintain a blog.

These four areas were broad enough to allow the foundation to change but still gave the interns some idea of the job, which would basically be to handle the Athens area.

Within each section more specific tasks were mentioned, such as distributing a certain press release.

After suggestions from the professor I spoke with a career director for the University of Georgia's mass communications school about internships. His contact information was included in the book.

Tactics divison

With the tactics finalized, we turned to actually preparing the tactics. For our campaign book we must prepare everything we plan.

The book with have press releases, public service announcements, event action plans, fliers and various other materials for the campaign. Our team leader posted assignments for everyone to do.

I was given the intern packet.

The rest of the tactics were divided out so must team members had 2 or so press releases or similar writings. The task was to get theses first tactics in with about a week to do them. Our professor set the deadline so she could proof them before they went into the book, another positive for campaigns as a class.

This sets up the last section of the book.

Tactics time!

Now that we have goals and objectives lined up, we have to decide how to accomplish them. For this we broke into small groups again. This time I was in a group with 2 others.

We decided to meet at a restaurant to iron these out. We wanted a relaxed atmosphere so we could just throw ideas out there and get talking. For every good idea we had several that needed work or could in no way be done. The atmosphere created a open environment for us to try every idea to find the best ones.

It also made for a great meal. The waitress came at least five times asking us if we were ready to order because we kept talking about the project instead of reading the menu. Once we finally ordered and the food arrived the conservation only stopped for a very short period before we were back at it again.

The team has really gotten into this project, but this is the best part. Brainstorming tactics allows you to be creative. We came up with a mascot, cool ways to cut out mailings and other random ideas that probably won't get used, but are a lot of fun talking about.

At the end of the meal we had a good list together to take back to the entire team. Our next meeting will be with everyone to finalize the tactics that we can actually use and will best promote our mission and accomplish the goals.

Small group praises

Now that all the research has been completed the next stage of our campaign is to decide our goals, objectives, and tactics. For this stage we broke our normal team of 11 into three small groups.

I found these small groups to be much more productive. After an initial brainstorming session, each group took a goal and created objectives for that goal. The numbers of objectives varied from five to 20, so we had to do some work to even them out and get a reasonable number for each goal.

The brainstorming and final decisions came from the group as a whole, but the small groups were great to accomplish the work in between these major meetings.

I was in a group with three other students for deciding on objectives. Between the four of us we were able to hash out a good number of possibilities and discuss the pros and cons of each. The smaller number allowed everyone to contribute and also cut down on the useless talk that a larger group can get sidetracked with.

By using smaller groups we were able to accomplish more in the same time frame and move on the the next stage of the campaign.

The Lab!

I am sitting in the campaigns labs at 2 p.m. on a Saturday. I have been here since 10:30 with all of my group. As it gets to the end we have all come together. Luckily I like my group otherwise I would have gone crazy by now.

This lab has been home for hours this week. In fact last night we just had pizza delivered to the lab. Hopefully my professor will not tell on us when she reads this, because food is techically illegal, but without it we would have gone insane.

I am on the editing team, so we have spent the hours pouring over numerous documents looking for spelling errors, and the infamous AP style. Without food my brian would not have been able to function.

I love/hate this lab. It has been helpful and a great central meeting place. However after hours in this confined room I feel like I am going crazy. I need to run screaming through the halls just to show myself that I can. I could leave the room at any point, but instead I sit here staring at this screen.

The computer has short walls coming out on each side closing me in. I sort of feel like I am in jail. I have to keep reminding myself that I will be released soon.

Focus group positives

Well one focus group finally came together. After many phone calls I found six members of a local organization willing to help. A teammate and myself went in with all the equipment ready to go. Luckily we had tested it the night before because we had forgotten how to use tape cassettes. It took us a while to figure out how to get the tape to record. After many times yelling, "testing, testing, 1 2 3" into the microphone we finally got it working.

When we arrived at the meeting we were greeting with cookies. Our guests had treated us instead. I had forgotten that Subway cookies are the greatest, but was soon reminded.

After introductions and a brief welcome we started taping. Two hours later we finally finished. It took forever to find people who wanted to be involved, but once we did we could get them to stop. This group wanted to get their information and knowledge out there.

With this campaign being for a nonprofit foundation, we were able to use other nonprofit organizations working towards the same general goal. These people were passionate about the cause. They wanted to help in anyway possible. Once we found a time that several of them could attend, they were all for it. For the other groups we also tried to find people passionate about the cause, but without this direct tie it was much harder.

The only downside to so much information is I now have to transcribe this whole interview. I will have to reminded myself of the importance and success over and over again as I sit at my computer for , oh about 10 hours.

Stress with classes and campaigns!

As I get toward the end of the semester, my stress level is going through the roof. I have this campaign, and this BLOG!!! along with my history thesis and other classes. The main problem with a campaign for class is it can't be your only focus. 40 hours a week can not be devoted to this project, or even just a group of similar projects.

My thesis is due next week and that is not a fun experience. I can say I have enjoyed campaigns much more than my thesis seminar. I have at least eight pages left to write and I am loosing my mind. I am starting feel that I am writing with nothing to say on all my projects. It is very frustrating!

The campaign is narrowing down, so soon that pressure will be off and i can focusing completely on my history classes and thesis, and of course this darling blog.

The advice and wisdom I have gained from this experience is to never put things off. Stress builds when you have pushed everything to the end of the semester. When Roman Civilizations is your stress-free period, you really need to learn to breathe.

Pizza anyone? Focus groups troubles

The hardest part of any campaign research is getting people to talk to you, especially without a budget to pay them with. Focus groups are not most peoples idea of a good time. Apparently most would rather get their wisdom teeth pulled.

For our campaign we wanted to perform four focus groups with various organizations. We were able to accomplish one full group and several other Internet mailings or one-on-one interviews.

It is not that people were rude, they just were not interested. I will now volunteer for everyone. I will be the sucker you can pull in without pay, because I feel the pain of anyone trying to get these due without a budget.

A budget might have helped to give people an incentive to participate. However we offered to bring pizza and were still shoot down. An hour talking about trees and housing is a hard sell no matter what.

PR and Street Corners

The audience is a central part of every PR campaign. One must consider who they are taking to before they can decide what to say. So someone must get into the minds of every potential audience. Surveys are a great way to find out what people think and feel about topics. As an undergrad, surveys mean working the street corners.

The first step is finding a place that allows any form of solicitation. My group searched many places, but only one store allowed us to perform the surveys. Our only other option was downtown street corners. Thank god for public forums!

Next we had to stand outside and try to convince people to actually take the survey. The proved extremely challenging. My favorite response was when those strolling along would suddenly start running saying, "I am in a hurry!" Downtown a group sitting on a bench staring into space, was also in a hurry. One lady stopped and took the time to look at the survey, but she misread the top. It said community survey, but she read it as community service. She handed it back saying she did not do community service.

After many hours on the corner, we completed enough surveys for our project. After we compile the information we hope to have a glimpse of how the community thinks, because speeching is always more effective if you know your audience.

Research incentives

PR research is often everyone least favorite section of the campaigns process. No one really wants to spend hours over a computer or book reading through for information. Unfortunately it is an important part of the process, that can not be overlooked.

Lucky for me, I am a history nerd that does not really mind the research section, but few agree with me. Most describe the process as extremely boring. So why do we torture ourselves?

Well without the research a campaign would lack focus. It might be brilliant and inventive, but probably miss its mark. It is hard to aim without a focus. Research gives us that focus. We must understand the past, the mission, and the current attitudes to know where the campaign should aim.

With nine other people on my team, the research section went pretty smoothly. We all took one section and then came together to discuss. I spent a few hours staring at tax codes, but nothing compared to the hours I would have spent alone.

When I enter the "real world" I may not have a team to work with. I will then spend extreme amounts of time studying myself; because it is important. I guess at least in that one respect college will never end.

Why Campaigns?

The study of PR can be entertaining, interesting, fulfilling, and frustrating. As a student any actual practice is limited but can be the highlight of any academic career. It can also be the most stressful experience of those 4 (or more) years within the hallowed halls. With few resources, limited time and a mix of people, my process could go either way.

However I look at it, the practice will be essential in learning how PR really works. The book and lectures can teach me what PR should be. My professors can be mentors and examples, as well as teacher; but without hands-on experience it is just words in my head and a lot of sample writing.

As students in this field we need both. In fact without the knowledge taken from books and lectures, the hands-on experience would be blind . However without the campaign experience our first jobs might be blind as well.

At the University of Georgia we are lucky to be given the chance to learn both ways. Throughout this semester my journey will go up and down, but the experience gained will be impossible to replace.