Being a socially conscious PR consultancy

Hi Everyone,

In my report I'm just about to start writing my recommendations to Savvy Creations which will outline its areas of improvement and areas of strength. After reflecting on the firm's areas of strength, something I've found really admirable is the way in which Savvy Creations places charity and not-for-profit organisations at such a high priority. My mentor at Savvy Creations who is also the Director, Sandra Spasojevic, goes about exercising its  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to help out those companies who may not have the big budgets to afford PR professionals to promote their cause to the public.

An example of this is Savvy Creations' client, a bottled water company who are a charitable organisation that gives over half of its profits to international charities. There are 3 different bottle caps which represent different charity sectors; the red bottle caps donate funds to health orientated charities, green bottle caps donate funds to environmental charities and blue caps donate money to clean drinking water projects in developing countries. It really is a great initiative where by buying a bottle of water,  people can contribute just a small donation to important causes without going out of their way to do so.

Savvy Creations offers free initial consultations and pro-bono work as part of their mission to help smaller companies, thus strengthening their CSR to the local Perth community. I think this is becoming a greater expectation that in the PR industry, firms need to be socially aware of the economic climate  smaller companies and charities are in where they don't necessarily have the big budgets to hire a PR consultant who could make their brand even more recognisable.

This definitely resonated with what I've learnt throughout my studies at Curtin, especially in the PR consultancy unit, where CSR and community engagement is crucial in order to maintain a positive reputation in the industry as stakeholder expectations are growing where by giving back to the community from firms is becoming a priority. After all, the fundamentals of PR that I learnt way back in PR Principles is that the role of PR in society is to create mutually benefit relationships between firms and their stakeholders...so why not create these relationships directly between the PR firm and the community which they practice in?

Something to think about!

Tahlia

Ramble and the social media world!

Today myself and the other intern Rhian had a meeting with the marketing manager Anthea. We arrived at 9am and spoke and exchanged ideas for an hour.

Within our conversation and idea exchange we came up with new ideas for ramble regarding social media.

first we got all access to the Ramble facebook site, twitter and we are going to make a new instagram account which we are both looking forward to managing.

below I will highlight some of the main ideas that we have come up with for each social media outlet.

FACEBOOK:

• ·      Competition: we decided to run a competition, where one lucky person will win a trip away to Margaret River for 3 nights. To be eligible to win, people need to like the ramble page and share the photo we provide to be in the chance to win. Announcement of the winner will be on th e19^th of September.
• ·      Work with instagram, what is posted on instagram will be posted on facebook also.
• ·      Post videos of Curtin students signing up for the Ramble/ talking about what they think the Ramble is about.

TWITTER:

·      With twitter we decided to:

o   Advertise the event

o   Use quotes every week; it can be funny, inspirational or health. This helps the Rambles awareness.

o   Using past photos of Ramble therefore, people can see how much fun it is and get a bit of a better idea of what is involved.

INSTAGRAM:

o   The main idea for instagram is to post pictures of UNI students and their involvement with ramble.

o   A countdown until the ramble event (this could be done weekly)

o   Memes – funny and fun.

I am so excited to be able to help manage the social media, I really hope we can make it successful and get the word out for such a worthy charity!

until next time…

Enjoy your day!

Gina Soumelidis        
15612898

Deciding on social media platforms for charities

Second Chance Horse Rescue is starting to create it's social media platform. The organisation has started to realise the social media "way" of life, how it can help reach a greater proportion of stakeholders and help increase awareness for their cause.

It was my job this week to research possible social media ideas and new platforms, ones that the committee can easily use, easily measure and can pass onto future committee members.
Second Chance currently has a Facebook page with over 6000 "likes", however they are getting asked more and more if they are involved in other media platforms such at Instagram, Pinterest, Blogs and Youtube.

Currently Second Chance uses Facebook to show off their upcoming events, the horses currently undergoing rehabilitation, photos and videos of their training as well as too show off their many success stories. They emphasise statuses by accompanying them with photographs and linking videos.

One key question was being asked; Why do people use social media?

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-right-social-media-platform-2013-7

This graph quickly summarises some main points in regards to what people use social media for in a business setting.

Because the committee generally has some changes year to year, the social media platoform needs to be something the whole committee can use, not just a singular person. Facebook is handy as, multiple people can be administers on the page, hence all 10 committee members have access to post on the page and be "Second Chance".

I spent the day trolling the internet, reading public relation blogs, trying to find stats on key social media platforms and emerging trends. I started with researching top platforms.

http://www.ibtimes.com/social-media-marketing-how-do-top-brands-use-social-platforms-charts-1379457

Keeping in mind that Second Chance's main strength is the rescues photographs and videos. After some thorough research I found that the following platforms would be adaptable for Second Chance and work within their organisational structure.
- Instagram
- Twitter
- Youtube
- Pinterest
- Google+

Blogs were a technique that was considered, however this tends to be created by one person in order to be consistent. Second Chance unfortunately can not secure a person who will be the organisations "Blogger" because new committee member are selected every year as stated in the constitution.

I found with many of the above suggestions there were many ways to research the return on investment. Instagram can use Statigram and Simply Measured, which are online websites that will create free reports after being allowed access to the Instagram account. It measures reach, likes, comments, best time of day to post, what day is best to post as well as favourite filters. It is an easy way to discover what the account followers like to see. 

I also found that many social media sites are linked together, you can share photos from Tumblr and Instagram to Facebook and Twitter. Show in the above diagram. Hence there are a number of social media platforms to consider these days. Many things need to be taken into account when selecting one such as availability, linkage to other sites, accessibility (Phone apps) and popularity. 

Recommendations will be made at the next committee meeting and hopefully some new Second Chance will soon take up the opportunity and expand the organisations awareness in the community through social media.

PS

Sponsorship is going great for the Second Chance Fundraising show, held in just under two weeks. An article was posted in the Perth Rider Magazine after I sent in a media release with a good number of responses already. It looks like it will be a great day for the charity!

To succeed in the world of social media be transparent and engaging!

My usual mornings at my internship include sipping a take-away coffee whilst reading up on industry blogs and researching social media strategies. One interesting analogy I came across was through a column written by Trond Lyngbo involving the peppered moth. These moths, once white with black spots, faced a strange challenge in London during the Industrial Revolution where buildings and trees turned black. The light coloured moths could no longer hide against this backdrop, however some survived by turning black themselves.

The lesson learnt from this moth was clear – to survive you must adapt and change with your environment…otherwise you’re dead! This parallel relates to how social media has shifted and how it is imperative to adapt to these changes within the world of social media, if not, you have less of a chance in succeeding. This article greatly interested me as one of my main priorities and tasks within my internship is social media management. 

Social media is changing every day, from new hashtags to new apps, there is never a dull moment! I have already become knowledgeable on a range of mediums of social media networks that I had previously never heard of. Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Pinterest, Weblogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and the list goes on...

I am responsible for uploading daily posts and monitoring comments for an array of our clients, which can be quite a tedious job as controlling messages on the digital world is becoming seemingly more difficult. As fourth year public relations students we are all familiar on the importance of transparency for an organisation. Essentially, social media management is all about maintaining this transparency, customer engagement and openness.

It was an exciting opportunity to finally put these years of university theory to practice. My first encounter was responding to a customer complaint on one client's Facebook page – to say the least, this customer was not afraid to speak their mind.  It was my duty to resolve this conflict by responding to the post with a resolution and reporting back to our client. As I’ve learnt through my PR studies, it is essential to deal with these issues online by being wary of censorship, as the way you are seen in the public eye with issues online can either enhance or break your reputation.

This week I was also exposed to the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and in today’s digital realm it is more important than ever and still evolving! Many of the campaigns that I’ve been working on involve SEO, by using social media as a means of multiplying the impact, essentially through creating a viral word-of-mouth newsflash. 

A new task I was given this week was to develop a campaign for The Tradewinds Hotel and more specifically their Christmas functions. The campaign will revolve around generating awareness of this venue as an ideal solution for work colleagues, social groups or family/friends to socialise during the festive season. 

That’s all from me for this week - thank you for reading!

Rachel.