Post on classmates blogs

This week we tackle our peers blogs and get a glimpse into the minds of my fellow classmates. After reading a few well written blog entries of my intelligent public relations classmates, I focused on two entries that I had no knowlegde about. Lindsey talks about her internship at NBC News and Charlie talks about the medical field. 


I read Lindsey's blog entry on qualitative research. She shared a personal experience that was very helpful in defining qualitative research. She said it, "Attempts to uncover information to provide a basis for future research as well as for communications insights and prompts. This includes observing what people say and do, their meaning, comprehension and progress." I thought this definition was well put and thourough. Her internship at NBC News required her to listen to viewers through a hotline. Viewers called in to express their feelings about MSNBC programming. I could imagine the characters she must of had to deal with! Her experience with the viewers allowed her to see the effective research. NBC uses qualitative research to estimate the demand for TV commercial time during the upfront market, a time when TV networks sell a majority of their on-air advertising. I was happy to see a concept learned from class used by a highly respected company like NBC. Their collected data helps improve the company. NBC finds more information about where their money should go. Information about advertising spending in TV, print, radio, billboards and such is vital for the TV network NBC. 


Charlie Niland's blog on health care and medical PR interested me. He wrote about the increased amount of qualitative research in health care. He provided a good definition of qualitative research. He said it is, "the gathering of data through non-numerical information which investigates the "why" and "how" of a certain topic. " Niland asks how can qualitative research answers clinical questions? Qualitative research in the medical field doesn't provide answers to many  questions such as "is the design of the study appropriate?" Clinical experience is necessary when identifying scientific results. I would not be able to define most scientific terms found in medical research so it is a good thing that people who have a medical background conduct such research. However, people can do not often rely on personal experience as means to make decisions in the medical field. Charlie thinks that in certain situations an experienced person can be helpful in the medical field. This makes the issue of this type of research controversial. 


I loved reading these blogs well written by my peers. Its a great exercise to get to know my classmates better. 

Qualitative Research and PR NEWS

Qualitative research is extremely helpful in public relations. This type of research helps PR practitioners gain insight on people's attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. In order to do qualitative research, a PR professional needs to decide on the appropriate type of qualitative research. Will observation work well or should one use ethnographic research? In other words, should the researcher stay out of the research experiment or take part in the experiment as a participant? 


As we learned in lecture, there are many types of observation methods. Latent method gains insight on people's attitudes while manifest measures results. Participant observation requires the researcher to be part of the issue and non participant observation the researcher observes without getting involved. Structure method is research studied before and unstructured is new research. 


An article in PR News, More Than 30 Social Media Topics Headlined the PRSA Conference, But Influential Traditional Media Still Has Its Day observes the 2010 PRSA Conference held this past Sunday in Washington, D.C. PR News writer, Scott Van Camp, informs the reader that 1,900 people attended the event for many informative sessions. In order to write this article someone had to of been observing to calculate the number of people present. The article summarizes some important sessions in a few paragraphs. 


The highlighted sessions in the PRSA conference were Save the PR Industry: Support Traditional Media, PR Knowledge, Skills & Abilities Needed in 2015, and Speechwriting and Social Media. The conference urged attendees to continue to use print media. Social media is not in total domination. PR News says, "57% of the U.S. population—or 171 million people," still use print. I didn't expect to see more than half of the population still reading the daily newspaper.  Sharon Geltner, president of Froogle PR, advises communicators that students are still majoring in print journalism. This is a good sign for newspapers because it is not dead yet! 


The skills needed in 2015 is the most beneficial piece of information I read in the article. PR News says, "A new PRSA survey of more than 1,000 PR professionals finds that the skills that will be needed most by 2015 will be social media, crisis communications and reputation management." Although print media isn't dead, social media remains the newest up and coming form of communication. Students, teachers, businesses, and more need social media to stay connected. I was happy to see crisis communication because that is my next course of study at Quinnipiac University . Also, writing and listening are good skills to posses when communicating with social media. "Writing has always been the No. 1 request from companies searching for PR executives," said Lisa Ryan, senior VP  of of communications recruiting firm Heyman Associates. Executives want people to write well. This is a good skill to have in any career. 


The speech writing and social media session offered tips on how to reach target audience on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets. LinkedIn Polls can provide communicators with research on people's concerns and issues. GET MOVIN! Use this tool in your next presentation. Instant audience polling is a great way to add social media to a meeting. The best part of this online tool is that it is cheap and easy. Furthermore, more people are using Twitter in their presentations to allow audience members to tweet their thoughts during the presentation. Twitter can also be used for research by using the search bar. If you search for a topic, then you will find all conversations about the topic. Social media is so important to know. There is so many new tools to use that it is imperative for communicators to keep on top of new media. 


The writer of this article most likely used qualitative research to report on the PRSA conference. Whether or not the reporter participated in the conference is not known. I would guess Scott Van Camp was sitting in the audience actively participating in the conference while observing the audience and speakers in Washington, D.C. 

Comment on classmates blogs

This week I will comment on other classmates blogs. After reading through many blog posts, I found two that really stood out to me. I connected with Katie's Blog and Devon's Blog because they both talked about social media, a topic that is so popular right now. The social media buzz has even started taking over the entertainment industry with the release of the movie The Social Network.

Katie talked about social media. I agree with her ideas. Social media has indeed taken over our lives. And fast! There is a growing trend of checking Facebook statuses and Twitter updates worldwide. It is a beneficial way for companies to connect with their demographic. Social media provides non profits with inexpensive affective communication. I never thought of all the added benefits that social media has given our society. Not only is it fast communication but it gives non profits a free way to get in touch with people.

Devon said unobtrusive research is easily obtained through social media. I knew social media can market products efficiently by placing a face to the company or person. I follow many celebrities on Twitter and it is interesting to see their tweets. I see them in a different light by following them on Twitter. It definitely helps to give celebrities and companies good PR. Celebrities seem more down to earth. Devon proved that research can be done through social media. I never considered social media as a form of research but it can be done!

Blog Post 5 Unobtrusive Research

This week our class discussed different types of Unobtrusive research. This method of research studies an issue from a distance without influencing the process. It examines records, events, characteristics, and behaviors. The two types of unobtrusive research our class focuses on is content analysis and indirect measures of research. Unobtrusive research is strongly needed in public relations in order to conduct a good campaign and measure the effectiveness of the company.

An interesting article in PR News sheds light on how to approach current communication trends. I found the article titled, "Yesterday's PR Pros, Today's Chief Content Officers," extremely beneficial and informative. The author, Bob Rumpza, argues that PR professionals should take authority in tackling the challenges of marketing convergences because it is the PR people that communicate news well. After all,"We know how to tell the story—and tell it in ways that get results," says Rumpza. He gives readers pointers when marketing tactics such as social media, advertising, and digital PR compete for the best way to reach an audience.

Tip number one says to "Keep up with consumers’ rapidly changing use of media." To engage readers, public relations practitioners should use relevant content in places the audiences will see the most. A study done by ARAnet inc., proves communication methods are rapidly changing. Most people in the company's target market are searching the Internet to find brand information because they trust online opinions. What I found most interesting is the people in the study are more influenced by online information than by a group's belief. They also prefer websites loaded with information rather than a banner ad for purchasing. Thus it is important to conduct content analysis research to learn about competitors methods, the media, and the target audience to successfully keep up with these changing trends. Check out the You Tube video at the top to see just how fast our world is changing!

Tip number two reads, "Incorporate new content tools that combine the best of PR, advertising and digital." The best way to reach an audience is to use a mixture of PR, advertising, and digital. Public relations tactics focus on credibility, building relationships, and reaching target audiences. Advertising uses catchy slogans and branding to get attention. Digital and online tactics are useful when measuring the company's success and providing online photos and logos.

ARAcontent 2.0 is a matte company that distributes to top media websites and provides PR practitioners with branded content and good PR results. Looking into this tool, I found it attains surpassing amounts of media coverage by publishing a targeted story around the world. In 1996, ARAnet first created a print version of this amazing tool but as times are a changin' the company came out with a new digital version now known as the evolution of PR branded content. How easy!

The last tip advises PR people to, "Select tools that provide measurement." Public relations practitioners need to measure the success of the company. This goes further than recording the number of clicks a website receives. The article recommends PR people dig deeper, work harder to discover the traffic on a client's site. Overall this will tell the value of the marketing tactics. One common way measure success is by conducting unobtrusive research to analyze available records or behaviors. It is cheap and easy to do. It is the only way to examine large-scale trends.

As PR practitioners, we cannot overlook the many uses for Unobtrusive research. This method of research helps PR people keep up with changing communication trends by learning about what the competition and target markets are doing. Unobtrusive research methods can be used to study client website attendances as means to determine company success. As PR News informs us, the best way to reach an audience is to keep up with public relations tactics, advertising branding, and digital media.

Blog Post 5 Unobtrusive Research

This week our class discussed different types of Unobtrusive research. This method of research studies an issue from a distance without influencing the process. It examines records, events, characteristics, and behaviors. The two types of unobtrusive research our class focused on were content analysis and indirect measures of research. Unobtrusive research is strongly needed in public relations in order to conduct a good campaign and measure the effectiveness of the company. 


An interesting article in PR News sheds light on how to approach current communication trends. I found the article titled, "Yesterday's PR Pros, Today's Chief Content Officers," extremely beneficial and informative. The author, Bob Rumpza, argues that PR professionals should take authority in tackling the challenges of marketing convergences because it is the PR people that communicate news well. After all,"We know how to tell the story—and tell it in ways that get results," says Rumpza. He gives readers pointers when marketing tactics such as social media, advertising, and digital PR compete for the best way to reach an audience. 


Tip number one says to "Keep up with consumers’ rapidly changing use of media." To engage readers, public relations practitioners should use relevant content in places the audiences will see the most. A study done by ARAnet, proves communication methods are rapidly changing. Most people in the company's target market are searching the Internet to find brand information because they trust online opinions. What I found most interesting is the people in the study are more influenced by online information than by a group's belief. They also preferred websites loaded with information rather than a banner ad for purchasing. Thus it is important to do content analysis research to learn about competitors methods, the media, and the target audience to successfully keep up with these changing trends. 


Tip number two reads, "Incorporate new content tools that combine the best of PR, advertising and digital." The best way to reach an audience is to use a mixture of PR, advertising, and digital. Public relations tactics focus on credibility, building relationships, and reaching target audiences. Advertising uses catchy slogans and branding to get attention. Digital and online tactics are useful when measuring the company's success and providing online photos and logos. 


ARAcontent 2.0 is a matte company that distributes to top media websites and provides PR practitioners with branded content and good PR results. I looked into this tool and found that it attains surpassing amounts of media coverage by publishing a targeted story around the world. In 1996, ARAnet first created a print version of this amazing tool but as times are a changin' the company came out with a new digital version now known as the evolution of PR branded content. How easy! 
">You Tube Video  


The last tip advises PR people to, "Select tools that provide measurement." Public relations practitioners need to measure the success of the company. This goes further than recording the number of clicks a website receives. The article recommends PR people to dig deeper, work harder to discover the traffic on a client's site. Overall this will tell the value of the site and if it is reaching the target audience. Unobtrusive research can be used to track a company's progress without coming up with a new research method. One common way to conduct unobtrusive research is to analyze available records or behaviors. It is cheap and easy to do. It is the only way to examine large-scale trends. 


As PR practitioners, we cannot overlook the many uses for Unobtrusive research. This method of research helps PR people keep up with changing communication trends by learning about what the competition and target markets are doing. Unobtrusive research methods can be used to study client website attendances as means to determine company success. As PR News informs us, the best way to reach an audience is to keep up with public relations tactics, advertising branding, and digital media.