The Power of Communications

Hello fellow interns, 

Welcome to my third blog for PR Professional Practice.  So far I’ve shared with you certain aspects of my role which includes creating a Marketing Plan in order to communicate the need and availability of Diabetes First Aid Kits.  

After several weeks of working at Diabetes WA,   I began noticing how vital communications between the different arms of the organisation was in achieving efficient and positive corporate representation. Members of the Heath Promotion to the members in the Finance department and everyone in between hold key vantage knowledge that may be compromised due to poorly constructed communication culture.

 

I have learned through personal experience and many conversations in the DWA office that there is so much information “at your fingertips”.  This was once a positive notion but nowadays, it has become more like a burden.  The overwhelming amount of communications and information are key reasons as to why members of various teams hesitate to share information so as to prevent further bombarding recipients with material.  Material which might be of use.   

Drawing from my own experience of being on university committees, cohesiveness between teams is key in funnelling topics that are newsworthy to members of the Marketing or Communications team. The various teams within an organisations or committees are resources of information which Communications members ought to tap into.  I say this with full realisation that there are serious barriers of communication which could lead to poorly constructed perceptions of the kinds of news updates us Communications reps are on the look-out for. 

I’ve learned the importance for Communication Officers to ensure colleagues understand the role you fill and vice versa.  Maintaining open and constant communication channels is also important.  While a majority of internal conversations take place via email, it’s often effective to approach other staff in person to get feedback on updates and progress of various projects.           

It is the seemingly benign project updates and achievement of progressive mile stones that are of great importance to Communications reps, next to positive research outcomes. With these pieces of information, Communications teams will be able to device media releases and fresh social media content to constantly remind external publics of the wonderful work which had been crafted by the organisation.   

The team which acts as the face of an organisation is responsible for continuously refreshing the positive image of the organisation while the logistics of achieving a positive image is largely a whole organisational effort, or so I have learned.

Until next time!

Mila