PR Seminar

PR: Tips, Tools, Tactics and Trends Public relations is an essential marketing tool for any company seeking to raise awareness, promote products and services, and boost sales. For firms that are planning on incorporating a public relations program into their broader marketing effort, it is important to keep in mind the tips, tools, strategies and trends of public relation. Most businesses or nonprofits have a unique narrative way of showing their projects in helping the Filipinos. One example is the slide show of Globe’s project, “Bridging Community” which allows the company to reach out to the communities where they operate. According to the first speaker Mr. Edwin P. Galvez, President of Strategic PR Solutions & Options, this program helps to empower community leaders, improve the entrepreneurial skills, and develop education in 1,100 schools and initiatives in 1,100 baranggays. He also discussed about publicity and said that it is an unpaid form of communication that needs an effort to capture media attention. He gave us tips and countdown of 10 important things to remember about publicity. (Not all publicists are public relation practitioner, think like a journalist in doing your story, there’s no shortcut to a good publicity campaign, It doesn’t pay to pay, your word is everything, be accessible always, no close media this can make up for lousy stories, build authentic relationship, talent isn’t everything hard work is, and the number1 is to be a jack of all trades) I’ve gain enough knowledge about his lecture because he explains it according on to what he experienced in his profession. The next speaker Ms. Artema Ligaya Huang shared tactics to become a good event manager. I learned that preparing plans, speeches, having checklist before brainstorming, reading articles, sitting on advisory boards and being organized are all good tactics for small businesses. A media event is a public relations tool that can be a powerful way for virtually any small business to get a lot of exposure. Preparing budget, proposing the events, assigning tasks, preparing of collateral, selecting vendor, confirming date and analyzing the event are the procedure that she shared to us to have a successful event. She also remind us to give thank you notes, send news letters to follow up the clients, and freebies for them to appreciate the event. Ms. Artema also told us that it is important to collect names for contacts which are useful for other upcoming event. On the last part of the seminar, they showed us The Anvil Awards competition (truth, transparency, excellent concern for public interest) which is conducted annually by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines that honors excellence in Public Relations practice. According to Mr. Galvez, all widely recognized professionals are chosen not only for their competence and expertise, but also for their admirable reputation and therefore it is the most desirable distinction, and the goal to aim for in PR. Overall the seminar was successful and it really helped us students to realize that in any profession, only the best manage to stay at the top. When more great people and minds enter the profession, they will create their space. The seminar gave us enough information on what are the benefits of being a good events manager and a public relation practitioner. It inspired us to pursue this line of career in the future because of its good job opportunity. They gave us a brief discussion of PR process, history, publicity, and advertising, and also this seminar offers a good learning experience that we can’t get just inside the classroom. The speakers connect their lecture on to what they experienced in their job and shared their personal achievements, ability and knowledge which I can apply in my future career.