Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

It’s that time of the year again. New students are embarking on new courses, full of expectations. Yet this most obvious of questions is not that easy to answer.

I’ve put this question to my first year PR students.

They, remember, are the first year to be taking on greatly increased levels of debt to attend university.

So it seems an important question to address early on in their studies....

[I really enjoyed these thoughtful responses from first-year public relations students ~ Jeff]

If you want to pitch better, pitch smarter. That’s the message that Porter Novelli’s Jodi Fleisig delivered in January’s Marketing News. We took her insights and created this cheat sheet with five tips on how to pitch reporters and get results.

While you probably won’t pitch journalists as a PR intern - no matter where you work - these 5 tips for pitching better and smarter are nuggets you can take with you through your career....

What exactly does ‘excellence’ mean in public relations? Is it something to be achieved by anyone following a particular approach (as implied by the Model of Excellence), or demonstrated by those recognised by the industry (such as winners of the CIPR Excellence Awards)?...

But I’d like excellence to mean more than that. To be really truly exceptional we need to take giant leaps, not neat little steps to perfection. Not just being good enough, better than others or even better than you were yesterday, but achieving big, hairy audacious goals. I’d like to see leaders in public relations pushing the practice to achieve this sense of excellence – being bold and demanding, but also driving from the front. Where are our ambitions for excellence in public relations?

I have the same desire for those engaged in public relations education – I want to see the smartest, most intelligent people choosing a career in public relations – and not stopping there. This too involves bigger ambitions; stretching our young practitioners not simply to be competent on the job, but to celebrate a standard of education that makes them soar intellectually and challenge poor practices, unethical behaviour and mediocre measures of ‘excellence’. They should aspire to be entrepreneurs, chief executives, change agents in society, renowned writers and sought after advisors....

[Thoughtful PR post by Heather Yaxley - JD]

Dear Class of 2012:

Are you interested in a challenging, engaging career—one that exposes you to the world and pushes you to grow professionally and personally? Do you want to get in on the ground floor of a dynamic, rapidly expanding industry? Are you intellectually curious, a go-getter, a critical thinker, creative and a hard worker? Consider an opportunity in public relations....