Student Calls School's PR Efforts 'A Waste'

Student Calls School's PR Efforts 'A Waste'

Well here we go. Tennessee students getting their voice out into the news about public relations. Students at Middle Tennessee State University spend time wondering if the government is wasting the money of the tax payers. Gov. Phil Bredesen has made it clear that universities across the state will have to slash millions of dollars. That's why Middle Tennessee State University’s decision to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on a public relations campaign seems outrageous to some.

MTSU leaders are promoting a fee hike to build a new parking garage. To accomplish this students must vote to approve paying extra for it. The university is spending ten thousand dollars of the tax payers dollars, just to hire a public relations consultant to help execute the campaign.

Students are saying it is a waste. The university’s purse strings are already tight. They say that its college and students already have to keep a tight budget and tighten their belts. They are even asking the board to take another look at some programs and make necessary cuts, and by making those cuts to justify an expenditure like that of a garage and on a marketing firm. The students often question the priorities of the school.

"This project was really too big for any one of us to deal with," said Tom Tozer, director of MTSU news and public affairs. "You need somebody who can kind of stand back and manage it."

Students are saying, "Especially in financial times like this, you have to list everything, your most important expenditures," said Hurtt. "And a $10,000 marketing ploy and a garage, at this point, I don't think ranks very high on that list."

This comment doesn’t sound like the students will ever have much say in what really goes on through out the school. ” University officials are standing by their spending and said this isn't the first time they've hired from the outside for public relations help.”

Is social Public Relations for real? Which agencies get it?

In November Jennifer Leggio posted a multiple-question survey asking company leaders and marketing decision-makers about their public relations agencies. The purpose was to determine which Public Relation firms are best attuned to social media and are developing the most beneficial social programs for their clients. A respondent stated that “social media is not about Public Relations.” Social media is much larger than just the public relations, but rather internal communications, customer support, sales and lead generation, and project management. The focus of the survey was on Public Relations because it is critical that Public Relations agencies understand how social media can complement their offerings and how social media can shine a spotlight on existing poor public relations practices.
The survey had 642 responses. 53 people said they do public relations solely in-house with no agency support. 589 responses, 48 of those people worked outside of the business categories I was researching. The graphs at this website show the type of respondents by industry, role, and region.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=512
Here are some of the types of helpful hints that the survey suggested for agencies and clients.
Key takeaways for agencies:
• Consider integrating some social elements into your current programs versus charging premium rates
• Make sure the traditional PR element of your team / agency is strong before adding a layer of social on top of it
• Start tracking more carefully delivered results against promised activities in new business pitches
• Make sure your agency itself has its own presence / recognizable brand; make your people visible where appropriate as well
• When recommending social programs, consider all facets of your clients’ business and don’t lead with a tools discussion
Key takeaways for clients:
• Don’t evaluate your current / future agency on social programs alone; take traditional PR capabilities into account first
• Hold agencies accountable to promises made when the contract was first signed (barring major changes in business strategy / priorities)
• When considering an agency’s social abilities, ask for case studies and ROI metrics; do not fall victim to approaches led solely with tools
• For the most successful programs, you must be transparent with your agency and give them access to content and spokespeople. Be open to push-back from your agency as well.

A-Rod learns important PR lesson

After this week those of you who don’t watch ESPN might not know the issues with Alex Rodriguez. I have been watching ESPN periodically, only periodically because you don’t get any information of sports anymore, so I feel the need change the channel. ESPN has the Alex Rodriguez interview one time ever 3 hours. Today was the first time that I had only seen it on ESPN two times. Alex Rodriguez has been accused of using steroids in the Major League. Alex Rodriguez is very fortunate today that for once in his life, the good public relations thing to do was also the smart thing to do and right thing to do. Back in 2003 during an interview (before steroids were banned in the MLB), Rodriguez had admitted to using/trying steroids (not knowing the consequences of bad PR). I chose this article because it had public relations in the title and it has been a big topic all week. It also shows the affects of good and bad public relation skills.

“Most fans, though, will give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt, and believe that he's come clean with nothing more to hide. That's fine - after all, he hasn't had a positive test since MLB began punishing steroid offenders. And he'll be able to answer any drug questions by pointing back to his admission, making any questioner look like a muckraker. The admission, in that sense, gives him the upper hand so long as no new damning details emerge. It also relieves pressure from being hounded by the questions every day when he comes to work, allowing one less distraction to affect a very distractible player. Smart move.” This part of the article expresses the good public relation skills from Rodriguez.

“Most importantly, admitting his mistake and telling the truth was the right thing for Alex Rodriguez to do. It doesn't change the fact that he's lied for the past eight years, or any of the other things that there are to not like about him, but it's never too late to tell the truth. There will be repercussions, with fans grumbling that he must be back on the juice every time he hits a tape-measure home run, and there will always be lingering doubters about whether he only admitted that which could be proven, but for those outside of the tinfoil-hat community, today is a redemptive day for A-Rod and for baseball.”

I like how he ends this article stating how he did his goods and bads, and how Rodriguez will have to pay for his actions and how he will now have better PR skills to keep him out of trouble.

A-Rod learns important PR lesson
Jesse Spector

Citi Belated Learns to Play the Public Relations Game

I did my blog this week on “Citi Belated Learns to Play the Public Relations Game”. I chose this article because of two reasons, one because it deals with the public relations class, and two because I thought it sounded interesting on how reporters use work life as a game and make a showing of it. This article starts off by telling us how much heat that the Citigroup corporation is getting from the media. They have been doing a lot of bailout funds and”… widely criticized for significantly decreasing their outstanding loans since receiving TARP funds late last year.” They also had just purchased a $50 million Falcon Jet. Citi finally released to the public about how much that they have in TARP funds, but yet they neglect to mention the other $75 million in new loans that the company had just extended. Citi management is not in full control of the company. Government negotiations are determining what is in the best interests of the company. Citi was suppose to be a big part of the New York Mets this season as they were sponsoring the Mets’ stadium, and now are trying to back out of that agreement. The government has paid some $45 billion to Citi via TARP and now politicians feel empowered to steer Citi in whatever direction they deem does the greatest public good. Citi has been around for a while and has done an alright job at keeping up with the times, but as an outside viewer I tend to get a bad taste in my mouth when I read things about how Citi’s CEO’s are buying new jets and knowing that they are available for personal use is just wrong. While knowing that the company is in a crisis with the economy, and needing governmental funds and bailouts I just don’t understand the meaning behind much of what is going through their heads.