Effective Public Relations in Schools: No Longer a Luxury – A

Necessity.Tracey Quinn – Venta Preparatory School.

Ottawa, Canada

Why do we need Public Relations in our Schools?

• The customer is always right? • Know your stakeholders• Define Limits/ Delicate Balance• “Perception is Reality” – Marshal McLuhan• Helicopter Parents

Clarify Boundaries:

• Engage stakeholders using careful and effective communication/public relations to establish boundaries.

• Define parents role within the school community.

• Build understanding and a sense of trust.

A Delicate Balance:

• Delicate balance between parental engagement versus parental control.

• Private schools as an educational institution and a business.

• Parent confidence is vital.• Parent engagement - important

• What do your parents perceive they are purchasing?

• Embrace partnerships.• Parents look for information,

reassurance and answers to questions they ask their kids.

What is School Public Relations?

What is School Public Relations?

• “ Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.” Effective Public Relations. 9th Edition. Cutlip, S. Center, A. and Broom, G. (2006) p. 5

• “Educational public relations is a planned and systematic management function to help improve the program and services of an educational organization. It relies on a comprehensive two-way communication process involving both internal and external publics, with a goal of stimulating a better understanding of the role, objectives and accomplishments and, needs of the organization.” National School Public Relations Association. www.nspra.org

• “School public relations used to be about getting positive messages out – it was a one-way communication street.Today, school public relations is less about conveying information than it is about establishing and promoting partnerships within the “community”. An effective school public relations plan provides value by giving people information parents can use, not just information that the school needs to convey about process. Effective public relations means schools ask for and receive information just as much as they transmit it.” The Power of Public Relations in Schools by Carlsmith and Railsback.

Public Relations vs. Marketing

• How is public relations different from marketing and admissions?

• How are they the same?

What is a Public Relations Plan?

The Four Step Plan

• Step 1: Define the public relations problem/goal/opportunity.Situation Analysis: “What’s happening now?”

• Step 2: Planning and Programming. Strategy “What should we do and say and why?”

• Step 3: Take Action and Communicate. Implementation: “How and when do we do it?”

• Step 4: Evaluate the Program.Measureable Results: “How did we do?”

Step1: Defining the PR Plan

• Situation Analysis: What is happening now?• Determine what you want to do.• Take information in.• Establish your goal. Sample Goal: Create a feeling of responsibility, making both

boarding and day parents feel that their school involvement plays a vital role in their child’s success at the school as well as the success of the school.

PR ResearchPR research is a mix between qualitative and quantitative efforts. (SWOT Analysis)

1. Find out what your stakeholders are saying.

2. Take your own polls.3. Get feedback from teachers.4. Surveys5. Seek out non-users6. Content Analysis/Communication

Audit

7. Benchmark.8. Focus Groups.9. Interviews.10.Track parent questions.

With initial research in hand the planning stage can begin.

Step 2: Planning and Programming

• Strategy: “What should we do and say and how?”

• Establish Communication Tactics in relation to your goal.

• Tie your plan’s objectives to its activities.• This should be based on information

uncovered in the research stage.

Checklist: The 12-Step School PR Planner1. The overall mission of my public relations activity is to:

2. The current situation that I am trying to remedy can be best described as:

3. If successful, my public relations efforts will result in a preferred situation that can be best described as:

4. My key audiences are:

5. The messages I want to deliver to each audience are:

6. My specific public relations objectives (the actions and behavioural outputs I want to see) are:

7. The public relations strategies that will be used to reach these objectives are:

8. The specific public relations tactics I’ll use to implement these strategies include:

9. My budget, broken out by tactic, includes:

10. My timeline for developing, implementing, and assessing this plan is:

11. I will monitor progress during implementation by:

12. I will assess final success by:

Choosing Tactics

• What is a tactic? Tactics are the PR activities used to deliver your messages and channel feedback to you. They can be one-way or two-way communication.

• In this phase, create a list of tactics you will use.

Step 3: Take Action and Communciate!

• The “plan” and tactics should be in writing.• Each tactic should have supporting details

with deadlines.• Plan needs to be measurable and goal driven.

Web 2.0

• Web 2.0 should be included and act as a compliment to other tactics.

• “Traditional” communication can’t be ignored.

• However, Web 2.0 cannot be ignored.

• Social media is a powerful tool in implementing your goal and getting feedback.

It’s time to join the conversation.

What is Web 2.0 anyway?

• The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing and collaboration on the web.

• For example, blogs, Facebook, Twitter.• It allows anyone, anywhere to join the

conversation.

Web 2.0

• Suddenly the conversation is going on all around you.

• Crucial to get involved.• It’s time to join the conversation

to achieve your public relations goals.

Video

• Benefits of Video.1. It’s Visual.2. It’s Sticky.3. It’s Emotional4. It’s On-Demand5. It’s Versatile.

Use YouTube!Fast Facts:

98% of videos watched on line are on YouTube.YouTube has the 4th largest audience on the web. After Google, YouTube is now the world’s largest search engine on the web.

• This tool helps you determine whether your videos are achieving the intended PR goal.

• Who is watching and for how long?

• Are the right people the video designed to encourage attendance to your event?

Gain Insight using YouTube Insight

Twitter

Fast Facts:44 million users

Majority of Twitter users are ages 25-54Most active age group 45-54

From ComScore - 2009

A few things to remember...

• If you are not listening, you can’t hear.

• Make an informed decision to respond to negative comments or not.

• Respond publicly.

FacebookFast Facts:- There are 300 million active Facebook

users.- The fastest growing demographic is

people 35 years and older.- 70% of Facebook users are outside the

US.- More women use Facebook than men.

Source: Facebook

How do you use Facebook to achieve your PR goals?

• Post news/videos.• Create invitations.• Don’t clutter the page.• Synchronize Facebook page with

Twitter, school blog, YouTube, website.

Monitor how your stakeholders use your Facebook page.

Blogs

• Blogs are very quickly replacing traditional media as a reliable news source for many people.

• Capture “real-estate”• Sign up with “Google Alerts”

http://alerts.google.com• Free and helps you monitor what

is being said about your school.

SKYPE

• Communicate “face-to-face”• Important for boarding parents• Use Skype to gather qualitative

data

School Calendar

• Categorize.• Synchronize

E-Mail Newsletters

• Don’t send 4 a day.• Design of e-mails plays an

important role in access to information.

• For example: - make space for important events in

top right or left hand corner- Don’t include entire contents of

newsletter- Track your readership

Web-Based E-mail Marketing

Constant Contact: www.constantcontact.com

RSS Feeds

• Really Simple Syndication• Allows your stakeholders to link

to news/updates from your school.

• A lot of RSS feed generators are free. For example, IceRocket.

• http://rss.icerocket.com

Step 4: Evaluating the Program.

• How did we do?• If your program is well-conceptualized this

step will be easy.• If not – the evaluation Step will fall short.

Adequacy of background information base for designing the program.

Appropriateness of message and activity content.

Quality of message and activity presentations.

Number of messages sent and activities designed

Number of messages placed and activities implemented.

Number who receive messages and activities.

Number who attend to messages and activities.

Number who learn message content.

Number who change opinions.

Number who change attitudes.

Number who behave as desired.

Number who repeat behaviour.

Social and cultural change.

Blue – PreparationOrange – ImplementationRed - Impact

3 Stages to Evaluating a PR Program

1. Preparation Evaluation2. Implementation Evaluation3. Impact Evaluation.

No evaluation is complete without addressing criteria at each level.

Google Web Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics

This is a free service that will give you rich insight into your website traffic and PR plan effectiveness.For example:

Social Media Measurement Matrix

Although social media is often free, your time and efforts are not.

The following Social Media Measurement Matrix helps facilitate side-by-side comparisons of your social media accounts as well as momentum over time.

Platform Audience Activity Engagement Web-Traffic Lead GenTwitter # of Followers

# of Friends# of Tweets # of Tweets

# of Mentions# of Retweets# of Conversations

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

Facebook # of Fans# of Favourites

# of Posts# of Events

# of Comments# of Attendees (Events)

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

YouTube # of Subscribers# of Views# of Favourites

# of Uploads # of Comments# of Link backs

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

Blog Commenting(capturing real estate)

# of Comments # of responses to your comments

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

School Blog # of Readers# of Subscribers (RSS)

# of Posts # of Comments# of Link backs

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

E-Mail Newsletters

# of Readers (Opens)

# of Comments# of Attendees (Events)

# of Clicks to Website

# of Leads

Obstacles• Convincing staff and teachers• The cost• Giving lip service• Forgetting the audience• Doing too much.

Conclusion

• Schools can’t ignore public relations.• School PR is less about transmitting

information and more about listening and responding to the expectations and concerns of its’ stakeholders.

• Public relations reflects reality. • “Perception is reality”

Bibliography1. Carlsmith, Laura., Railsback, Jennifer. (2001.) The Power of Public

Relations in Schools. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Massachusetts

2. Cutlip, Scott M., Center, Allen H., Broom, Glen M. (2006). Effective Public Relations Ninth Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

3. Kowalski, Theodore J. (2004.) Public Relations in Schools Third Edition. Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

4. Moore, Edward H. (2009.) School Public Relations for Student Success. Corwin: California.

5. Vining, Linda (2000.) Marketing Matters in schools. Centre for Marketing Schools: Australia.

6. Vining, Linda (2003.) Smart Ideas for School Marketers. Centre for Marketing Schools: Australia.

On-Line Resources

• Affect Strategies. www.affectstrategies.com• Mashable – The Social Media Guide.

http://mashable.com/• Dialogue On-Line: For Canada’s Independent

Educators. http://www.dialogueonline.ca/• National Schools Public Relations Association.

http://www.nspra.org/• Centre for Marketing Schools.

http://www.marketingschools.net/• Education World. http://www.educationworld.com/