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Happy Thursday, everyone!  As our first contribution to the bSmart Guide, we thought we would share some PR 101 tips along with some background information about who we are and what we’re doing.

For starters, we are Shauna and Paige, creators of the new blog Bold and Blush.  We are both upper-level communications students in Hamilton, Ontario with a special interest in public relations.  We’re both newly-minted communications interns who are using all of our new professional responsibilities to expand our textbook knowledge of the way the business works.  Bold and Blush is our platform to share our experiences as communications students and up and coming public relations professionals; it’s also a way for us to share industry news, product reviews and other musings from the minds of two twenty year old girls.

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Public relations is a business where experience truly is the greatest teacher, but it doesn’t hurt to have a reference to get you started.  Here’s our PR 101 tips to get the ball rolling:

1) Have a plan

When it comes to devising a public relations strategy that's going to garner your product or business the attention it deserves, make sure you refer to the RACE formula.  RACE stands for: Research, Action Planning, Communication, and Evaluation.  This formula will ensure that you have considered every facet of executing a successful campaign.  Too often the less glamorous stages like Research and Evaluation are overlooked, but pay close attention: those are what’s going to set you apart and allow you to demonstrate exactly what you accomplished.  This formula is the foundation for all successful public relations.

2) Be real

Think about how painful it is when you can see right through a campaign - it’s almost insulting because it seems as though the people involved underestimated their audience’s intelligence.  You want communications with your key publics to be genuine, transparent and meaningful.  Don’t use exaggerations or other shady tactics to win your audience over; show them how the product or service will satisfy a need and why it’s the most worthy of their dollars.  Building trust is so important and the only way to maintain that trusting and positive relationship with publics and stakeholders is to be ethical and transparent.

3) Know your stuff

You need to know your client, product, service, or whatever it is, inside and out and be ready to talk about it.  As a public relations professional you are the go-to for the media and that means being knowledgable and accessible.  Knowing your stuff extends beyond just knowing practical information about the product; know about your competitors, your audience and relevant issues as well. A good way to gauge whether or not you know and understand a topic is to consider whether or not you could explain it to a young child- if the answer is no, keep trying.

4) Connect

Building relationships is key to PR success.  Make meaningful connections with the media, key publics, stakeholders and pretty well anyone else you come across.  These connections are what’s going to make or break a campaign, and a career.  If you have strong, positive connections with people in the industry and members of the public, you are going to find it much easier to succeed. The best way to establish and maintain positive connections is to maintain frequent communication, be accessible, be kind and be genuine.

5) Be creative

At face value, this tip seems to conflict with our advice to follow the RACE formula, but trust us, it doesn’t. RACE is a formula that allows you to develop a strong base of knowledge and a solid plan to follow, you need to be creative in order to use those building blocks to achieve your communication goals.  Be creative in as many aspects of a campaign as you can, it’s what will set you apart and what will make it memorable.

We hope that these tips are helpful to you!  For more tips like these and to keep up with us, visit boldandblush.blogspot.ca. xx

 

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