What Teaching Teaches Me About Public Relations
Yesterday a friend of mine emailed me.
He said, “I’m stepping out of my comfort zone. I am teaching a ____ class at ____ starting this fall. I’ve never taught before. I know you have. Any guidance or tips?”
I replied with one of my shortest emails ever:
“Work closely with your program chair, follow instructions, record everything, and don’t let students give you crap.”
I think he laughed when he read it. But the more I thought about it, applying these principles in my teaching has, in turn, taught me to more effectively ply my craft as a public relations practitioner.
1. Work closely with those you need to
Filed under Business, Public Relations, Shonali Burke | Tags: client relations, effective pr, hopkins, teaching | Comments (39)Moving from “Buzz” to “Business”: Social Commerce Camp DC Is Coming Up
Why bother with PR?
One of the things that yours truly focuses on in her, er my, “day job” is the business use of public relations – or, in other words, why bother with “PR” if it’s not going to impact business indicators? Far too often, I see and hear people assuming the raison d’être of “PR” is to “create buzz.”
I won’t belabor the point here but in a nutshell, it’s not. Effective PR is designed – and implemented – with a view to helping an organization achieve its business objectives. In other words, it really is about managing the relationships between an organization and its “publics,” and thus impacting the bottom line.
Which is why I’m excited to be a part of Social Commerce Camp DC this weekend (Saturday, Feb. 20); a free educational event that is geared towards small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses and are looking for the tools to get them started.
Now, it’s a half-day event so no, you won’t be writing an encyclopedia on small business after attending, but what you should definitely walk away with is an understanding of how to use “social” to jumpstart your business (or kick it into high gear). And yes, PR is a part of that, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on.
Filed under Public Relations, Shonali Burke, Speaking, Women Grow Business | Tags: ecommerce, effective pr, pr, Public Relations, social commerce, social commerce camp DC, Speaking, Women Grow Business | Comment (1)
