Week 10- Chpt 7 Blog

1. I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were...
- PR practitioners need to think and practice strategically in order to be relevant in today’s organisation.
- The stages of the strategic process in PR are:
· Creation of organisational vision and mission statements
· Creation of public relations vision and mission statements
· Establishment of performance indicators
· Budgeting
· Writing of a strategic public relations plan
· Scheduling of public relations activities
- The public relations strategic planning is influenced in social, economic and political contexts. It is influenced by corporate culture, ideology, values and beliefs, systems and business processes.
- Strategic public relations is a very highly valued organisational function, it tends to be valued more highly than the typical department in an organisation.
- PR consultants are held in high esteem by chief executives in terms of skills of communication, media relations and publicity.
- Building a strong corporate reputation is important for the success of an organisation, which strategically managed public relations play a significant role in.
- Vision and mission statements need to be created for the organisation as part of its public relations strategy.
- The vision statement describes the future state of the organisation at a selected time.
- The mission statement is the road map that describes how the organisation will move to reach its vision.
- Key performance indicators are important and practical in general strategic planning, however they are not well suited to public relations strategies because the results of PR work can be intangible and not often repeated on a regular basis.
- PR strategic planning is very similar to the format of the business or marketing plan, which consists of the ‘ten-step strategic communication plan’:
1. Executive summary
2. The communication process
3. Background
4. Situation analysis
5. Main message statement
6. Stakeholders
7. Messages for key stakeholders
8. Implementation
9. Budget
10. Monitoring and evaluation
- Public Relations budgets are categorised into two groups:
· Administrative costs: salaries, on-costs and fringe benefits for full and part time employees.
· Program costs: photography, printing, catering, travel, gifts, production, room hire, accommodation, phone and fax transmissions, website creation and maintenance.
- Scheduling is essential for a public relations plan to be successfully implemented. No one plan no matter how carefully researched and prepared it may be can be implemented effectively without scheduling.
- Lists are useful in the PR function as they ensure nothing is forgotten in the strategic plan. These tools allow the PR process to be outlined, keep order and provide organisation and follow up. Often a checklist is used before an event and another evaluation checklist is used to provide feedback.
- Flowcharts, calendars and Gantt charts are also useful tools to ensure that the PR strategic plan is running on schedule.

2. The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that …

Like organisational objectives the public relations goals and objectives are best achieved when a strategic plan is created and used by an organisation. The plan needs to be effectively planned, implemented and evaluated to ensure that it is beneficial for the public relations practitioner and the organisation as a whole. Budgets are firmly established and the jobs that need to be completed are closely planned and monitored to ensure that nothing is missed or negatively impacts on other jobs. The use of a strategic public relations plan is crucial for the public relations department to maintain the high standard of the organisation. The public relations strategic plan is often very similar to a business plan. Each different public relations organisation will have its own unique objectives and guidelines that will make it differ from other organisations. The strategy, planning and scheduling of a public relations project is detrimental to the implementation of the project and the overall performance of the organisation.