Students in my Corporate Public Relations class at Southeastern University shared the top ten things they learned during the semester. I’ve summarized the highlights of their lists here, in alphabetical order by author. Some discussed the class in general, while others took a more focused approach on presentation skills.
- “Learn from the world around you – One of the greatest classes often is not in a classroom. Everyday in class we talked about different things that were happening in the world and how it relates to our field of interest. I think by scanning the days news headlines you can really learn from what people are doing in real life situations.”
- “Opportunities Are Everywhere: Connections can be made everywhere you go so it is always important that you be prepared to be professional. Tweets may even connect with a PR practitioners in Sprint who can let you conduct a project with a Sprint phone.”
- “Actions that could effectively prevent any harm to a company‘s reputation on Day 1 may be completely ineffective on Days 2, 5, or 10.”
- “Crisis Management – The Ford Fiesta [project] really pushed us to use our “Crisis management” skills. I learned it is always important to have a back up plan and to be prepared for ANYTHING.”
- “It is great to use PowerPoint to create a visual that your audience can relate to, or take notes from, but be careful! Make sure the PowerPoint doesn’t do your presentation for you. For the presentation simply put key words up that you can expound upon. If you put everything that you are going to say up on the PowerPoint, then you might as well let someone else stand up there and do your presentation for you.”
- “Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Preparation is something I always have known the importance of, but it seems that it is such a vital aspect in Corporate PR. If you are not on your toes and prepared for anything, then you are only making it harder on yourself and your company.”
- “Planning a campaign is difficult. We were given the task to put together a mini-campaign and there is a lot more that goes into it than what I originally expected. There is so much more that goes into researching a company and promoting a company. Sometimes you have to do it even if you don’t use the product or care for what they are doing, you still need to do your job to the best of your ability.”
- “Be engaged. Connect with your audience. Draw them in. Ask them questions or talk to them as if it were one on one. People appreciate it if you connect with them. It makes them feel special and appreciated, and we do appreciate them because they are our audience.”
- “You Never Stop Learning After College. Professor Nixon continuously tells us that as PR practitioners we have to keep up-to-date on what is going on in the world of PR and in general. A great way in keeping up-to-date is reading the news, listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and reading books about your related field.”
- “What You Post Online Will Be There Forever. I have been taught this my whole life, but it was not until Professor Nixon’s class that I fully understand. She showed us a website where you could look-up anything that has been posted online, even if it has been deleted. Made me take more precaution when I am posting things on the Internet.”
