K.J. Odom![]() Have you ever seen companies such as Wendy’s or McDonald’s trolling people online through social media? I have. If you have too, then you have been exposed to company PR, also known as public relations. Public relations in a company helps said company create, control, and maintain a positive image to its customers and consumers. Now that you know what PR is, do you think that PR attracts you to a company and/or intrigues you enough to go onto their page/website? If so, they have done exactly what they are supposed to do. Their job is not to persuade you to buy anything, that’s what a marketing team is for, but they will engage you to ensure that they stay relevant to you. Everytime you log into an account on social media or if a company ever has any community involvement that you witness/are a part of you are witnessing PR. As we look deeper into the process of how communication in medium sized cities gets to the citizens, we see that companies find people easily approachable through their PR. If you click on this YouTube video, you will see an example of the trolling that I talked about in the beginning of this blog post. The humor that is put into these is very thought out and is designed to intrigue viewers/customers, which you can see it does in the video. PR is not paid for though, so it’s not like an advertisements and PR is a little riskier than ads because it is not as carefully thought out before it is out, so a lot of PR activity can be misconstrued as being disrespectful or inappropriate. A lot of the PR that goes on in a social media setting is hoping that the audience is okay with sarcasm, a little bit of rudeness, and interesting humor. I have not seen any businesses in Sheboygan County participate in any PR like the PR in the YouTube clip, but I think that it could be very beneficial for many small companies. An example of how this could be beneficial for Sheboygan County and a business that could benefit from it is Chester’s. Chester’s is a drive-in restaurant that sells fast food such as burgers and fries. However, many students at my school, Lakeland University, an I’m sure many other people who reside in Sheboygan county don’t know about it. Also, there are several other restaurants in the area where Chester’s is located; restaurants like Culver’s, Dairy Queen, and Subway. Now, Chester’s is too small of a business to have an entire PR team or to pay someone just to focus on PR, but they could easily ask one or two of their employees to control social media for them. If they did this, they could just pay the employees a little extra money than they already make to give them a social media presence. The social media presence and PR that Chester’s could have could give them an upper hand on large chains such as the ones that I’ve just mentioned. They wouldn’t even have to do any trolling like you saw in the video, they could just do what good companies with PR do: reach out to their customers and the communities in the area to draw more attention to your business. Although Chester’s does have a facebook page with 8,095 followers, I’m sure that having a twitter and Instagram could help them tremendously when it pertains to gaining more followers and a larger customer base. I believe that PR is one facet of business that Chester’s could master to improve sales and word of mouth advertisements from the people of Sheboygan County. A business entity that does a good job of using PR to attract people and keep people interested is our school, Lakeland University. Lakeland runs several accounts that range from athletics, to groups and organizations, to just campus life in general. All of these pages are across several social media platforms and they help current students, staff, families of students, former staff, alumni, and families of alumni and staff stay up to date on everything Lakeland. This is so effective because it gives everyone who is attached to Lakeland in some way, or that follows the social media pages, a feeling of community and family. The PR that Lakeland uses is from interns who are students and can be paid or unpaid, which is something that Chester’s could implement into what they do. PR should be utilized throughout Sheboygan to help smaller companies become more well known by the people of Sheboygan, especially the college students that spend four years here. The way that communication goes through PR to the public can truly create a sense of community between companies and the people in the communities around them.
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Robert Rayfield![]() If you are reading this, you are likely already aware how much the communication process can affect your organization. You know that the messages you want the public to receive are important, but what about the messages you send to colleagues and between departments? How would you rate the overall cohesiveness of your organization from an outsider’s perspective? Internal communication within an organization is just as important as external communication. As this blog series is a group effort by a communications class, I’m going to limit the scope of the topics I cover to how they affect local government in medium sized cities. While the value of internal communication shouldn’t be underestimated by any organization, local government will only be at its best with deliberate attention payed to internal communication. This is because internal communication is a building block of quality external communication. When internal communication is lacking, you may get very different answers to the same question depending on who you ask within any given organization. We use the term government pretty inclusively. In a local sense, it’s everybody at City Hall, it’s Aldermen, it’s Public Works, the Common Council, inspectors, planners, clerks, police, transit and the list goes on. In reality, these are distinct groups and departments that may have very limited communication with each other outside of a few meetings throughout the year. Compounding this issue, communication within any single department may also be falling short of optimal. Many of us have had our share of problems when it comes to dealing with government agencies. Perhaps you were told by one individual what forms you needed for the DMV, only to arrive there and find out you need something else from a different employee. Maybe you called for a building permit for your new deck and were directed to three different people before you finally arrived at the person you needed to see. Although instances like these are not always avoidable in all cases, most could probably be remedied with a thoughtful approach to internal communication. So what can a deliberate approach to internal communication do to benefit an agency? First, it ensures that every member of the group is on the same page, feels included, and is empowered to perform their tasks. When employees go to work to do what they are told, when they are told to do it, they do not develop a sense of ownership of their job. If an employee isn’t invested, and doesn’t feel like they own their job, then it follows that they don’t have a strong sense of responsibility, nor are they going to feel motivated to correct issues they might encounter. Employees who do feel a sense of ownership of their position can be ambassadors for their organization. They are less likely to shift responsibility to other departments, or to transfer calls without being certain that they are sending someone where they need to be. Secondly, good internal communication limits the spread of rumors. In cities with smaller populations, more information is spread by word of mouth more than you might think. Here in Sheboygan, the city’s official website counter is seeing less than thirty visitors a day. Compare that with the people who hold conversations with the hundreds of city employees every day. Now think about the thousands upon thousands of people within those employees’ social media network. Sheboygan is far from a bad example of governments with poor internal communication. Still, there is always room for improvement. We encounter citizens who inaccurately “heard you were tearing down the historic such and such building,” or “heard you were banning food trucks downtown.” Misunderstandings like these arise from not controlling your message from the ground up. Employees close to decisions, but not directly involved, can misinterpret information and contribute to a “telephone game” structure of communication in a city where there may only be three degrees or less of separation between any two citizens. Think of this as a type of indirect external communication. You don’t have control over the audience you are reaching or the channel used to communicate, but you can affect the message indirectly with solid internal communication efforts. Deliberately informing employees of changes and their purpose improves information spread by word of mouth. Finally, how well you handle internal communication is going to determine how well you handle the unexpected. In times of crisis, we forego a lot of the checks we have in place for external communications. Having a well-designed system for internal communication will reduce errors when we are forced to cut corners due to emergencies. While there is no perfect game plan for approaching internal communication, there are some easy steps to get started. Centralize important information from all departments. It increases front-end workload for department heads to continuously provide updates, but this will pay off over time in fewer communication errors and less effort spent on clarification. Make as much as you can public. In local government, there are very few reasons why meetings should be held behind closed doors. Seek out feedback and work to identify and resolve shortcomings. And finally, ensure that your strategic plan involves all departments, and that everyone is aware of its content. What are your thoughts on approaching internal communication? Leave a comment below. |
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