RPIE for the #schoolPR Pro: Communication Plan Checklist #tspra14

School public relations programs have a much greater chance of success with proactive, strategic planning that incudes measurabIe objectives set forth by research and evaluated. The following is the RPIE for the School PR Pro checklist I created to share with other school public relations pros to guide them through the 4-step process -- Research, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation.  

This checklist was first prepared and shared at the 2014 Texas School Public Relations Association conference during the roundtables session.

PR Roles explained through Baseball Positions

In honor of the start of the 2012 MLB season and excitement I have for my favorite team, Texas Rangers, I thought it was time to repost something from a few years back: a list of the roles and functions for public relations pros explained using baseball positions.

1. Pitcher (P) - In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter who attempts to either make contact with it or draw a walk. In PR, the pitching role is one where the professional attempts to garner publicity or attention through effective media relations.
2. Catcher (C) - Positioned behind home plate, the catcher can see the whole field; therefore, he is in the best position to direct and lead the other players in a defensive play. In PR, this is the role of strategy. Like a catcher, the PR professional sees the big picture where they understand that actions will lead to specific reactions.
3. First baseman (1B) - A first baseman is the player on the team playing defense who fields the area nearest first base. In PR, this is the role of first response. The initial response to problems and/or crisis will make or break the situation.
4. Second baseman (2B) - The second baseman often possesses quick hands and feet, the ability to get rid of the ball quickly, and must be able to make the pivot on a double play. In PR, this role is of measured quickness. A public relations professional helps to protect reputation and vital relationships when an organization is under attack.
5. Third baseman (3B) - Third base is known as the "hot corner", because the third baseman is relatively close to the batter and most right-handed hitters tend to hit the ball hard in this direction. In PR, this is the role of coordination and quick reactions that comes with experience from having to catch hard line drives or difficult internal communication challenges.
6. Shortstop (SS) - Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball so naturally the PR role is one of adaptability. The one constant is that things change, it is up to the public relations professional to be aware and keep up with the broad and shifting landscape of the PR profession, media, and organizational industry.
7. Left fielder (LF) - Outfielders must cover large distances, so speed, instincts, and quickness in reacting to the ball are key. They must be able to learn to judge whether to attempt a difficult catch and risk letting the ball get past them, or to instead allow the ball to fall in order to guarantee a swift play and prevent the advance of runners. In PR, this role can be equated to good judgment. Professionals need to understand when not doing or saying something will provide the best benefit to the organization.
8. Center fielder (CF) - The center fielder has the greatest responsibility among the three outfielders for coordinating their play to prevent collisions when converging on a fly ball, and on plays where he does not make the catch, he must position himself behind the corner outfielder in case the ball gets past him. In PR, this role is made up of the credibility a professional must possess in order to be an effective communicator to both internal and external audiences. Just like a center fielder, the PR professional needs excellent situational awareness, vision and depth perception.
9. Right fielder (RF) - Of all outfield positions, the right fielder often has the strongest arm, because they are the farthest from third base. However, oftentimes, as in lower-levels of baseball, right field is the least likely to see much action because most hitters are right-handed and tend to pull the ball to the left field and center. In PR, this is the role of monitoring and measurement. Unfortunately, many professionals are not as up to speed in this area (me included) as we should do whatever it takes to learn how to measure. Thankfully, there is a greater push in PR measurement these days, so I consider this is a bright spot for the future of our profession. It requires additional work and research, but it is one of reward, sales, leads and maybe even justification for jobs well done.

Additional Positions

• Designated Hitter (DH) - The designated hitter is the official position in the American League to bat in place of the pitcher. In PR, this is the role that the professional understands the usefulness of social media for listening and engaging an organization's community. We are well past the time of whether or not a PR pro needs to know how to use social media tools. They are indispensable tools in the toolbelt. The PR professional needs to fully grasp various aspects and nuances of the social web to reach audiences including, at times, as a way to by-pass the mainstream media.
• Manager - A manager controls matters of team strategy on the field and team leadership. In PR, it's the same thing; strategic coordination of play and tactical movements are integral for successful public relations.

Play Ball!


Photo credit: ESPNDallas

Social Media Issues and Best Practices #tspra12

This is my presentation for last week's Texas School Public Relations Association 2012 Conference. I told attendees I'd have the deck available on the blog. Thank you to all who came to the afternoon presentation and for the great questions. I hope you took away something(s) useful. 

And remember, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Social Media Issues and Best Practices for School PR

View more presentations from Richie Escovedo

Special thanks to Craig Verley (Mission CISD) and Scott JuVette (Ft. Worth ISD) for letting me use you and your districts as good examples for the group.

Let Them Eat RPIE: Communication Planning

It's unclear who actually said the oft-quoted phrase, "Let them eat cake." This flippant phrase about consuming pastry is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, the frivolous queen in the days leading up to the French Revolution. She allegedly spoke the words upon hearing how the peasantry had no bread to eat. However biographers and historians have found no evidence to support the attribution.

What does that have to do with communication? Not much, really. I just thought it was a neat little bit of knowledge worth sharing. Plus, it made me think of pie.

Hungry for RPIE

The communication planning process of RPIE (Research, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation) has been on my mind a lot lately. Listening to two local PR pros share their insights from their award-winning PR campaigns at the Ft. Worth PRSA luncheon this week, both speakers framed things using RPIE. At work, I have a number of plans for events and campaigns running right now, all using the RPIE template to keep us on track. And most recently, while preparing a presentation on social media issues and best practices for the 2012 TSPRA Conference next week, the RPIE process made yet another appearance.

So I figured it was again time to revisit RPIE and share some themes for the process. 

Research

• What do we know? 
• What don’t we know? 
• Who do we want to reach? What do we know about them? Where do we find them? What do we want them to do?
• It starts with thinking about the people. 
• School District Buyer Personas 
• What do School Districts Sell?

Planning

• Goals 
• Measurable Objectives (who, what, by when, by how much) 
• Strategies Tactics/Tools 
• Notice the tactics/tools are the last thing before implementation

Implementation

• Execution of the plan or communicating 
• Creative
• Materials 
• Budget 
• Timeline 
• Delivery
• Actual messages sent through what channels? 
• How many messages reached your targeted audiences? 
• What monitoring tools will you use for execution?

Evaluation

• Did you accomplish your objectives? Prove it. 
• Identify ways to improve and recommendations for the future. 
• Media hits are not measurement. 
• Measure effectiveness of the program against objectives. 
• Adjust the plan, materials, etc., before going forward. 
• Can serve as research for the next phase or program. 
• Were you able to get key messages out and heard?

Using the RPIE method (or similar methods) is a solid way to make sure your key messages have the greatest opportunities to reach your target audiences. It's also the foundation to determine what's working, what's not, and how to tell the difference.

Photo credit: mackenziedreadful via Flickr Creative Commons

Commmunication Planning and the Acronym Jumble

RPIE - RACE - REGOSATTBE - WTH?!

Creating communication plans is tough when you're doing it right. I've been using a short acronym to help me remember the steps for some recent PR planning  and it made me think that we don't talk about PR planning enough.

It's crucial to put some forethought into your communication efforts. Admittedly, I have made what I believe is the mistake of taking an idea straight to the implementation phase (strategies/tactics) without much planning or analysis.

Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn't.

PR Plan Alphabet Soup 
So what should you do? I've used RPIE (Research, Planning/Analysis, Implementation/Execution/Communication, Evaluation) for my PR planning taken directly from the Accreditation in Public Relations Study Guide.The outlined four-step process explains each section and gives questions as a guide. For me, it's as much a learning tool as it is a practical tool for public relations professionals.

"Public relations programs cannot be successful without proactive, strategic planning that includes measurable objectives, grounded in research and evaluated for return on investment"
- APR Study Guide

RPIE
Research - Research is the systematic gathering of information to describe and understand a situation; check assumptions about publics and perceptions, and check the public relations consequences. Research helps define the problem and publics.

Planning/Analysis - Goals, audiences, objectives, strategies and tactics

Implementation - Execution of the plan or Communicating

Evaluation - Measure effectiveness of the program against objectives. Identify ways to improve and recommendations for the future. Adjust the plan, materials, etc., before going forward. This can serve as research for the next phase or program.

Here are a couple of other acronyms that might be useful.

RACE
Research
Action Plan
Communicate
Evaluate

REGOSATTBE
Research
Goals
Objectives
Strategy
Audience
Tactics
Timeline
Budget
Evaluation

Thanks to Mary Deming Barber for the REGOSATTBE acronym. She also shared a planning checklist document a while back that is a great, concise tool. (I love learning from PR people that are smarter than me.)
 
What about you? Do you use these or a different acronym method for your PR planning? Do you think PR people talk about PR planning enough? The comments are yours.

(Image credit: noeltanner via Flickr Creative Commons)

Related articles

• Four steps to a stronger PR plan (dontdrinkthekoolaidblog.com)
• Writing a PR Plan: Tools, Tips & Resources to Create an Effective Roadmap (prtini.com)
• Get S.M.A.R.T. When Setting PR Objectives (journalistics.com)

35 hand-picked posts for fellow PR pros

Photo via timrich26

So here we are again with what has become my annual birthday gift to you, a simple round-up of PR-related and digital communication blog posts, features, resources and tips that I've collected, saved, shared, loved, tweeted, and bookmarked or just found fascinating.


These are writings from those who I believe are some thought-leaders in the public relations industry or from those who continually provide rich resources for communication professionals. Many of these could just be cool and I think you should (re)read.

(Also, if you are interested, you can also check out my lists from my 34th and 33rd trip around the sun.)

Let's begin:

1. Crisis Planning: Prepare Your Company For Social Media Attacks (Web Strategy)
2. The Private Nature of Public Relations (Conversation Agent)
3. 5 Things Depeche Mode Can Teach You About Effective Online Marketing (Copyblogger)
4. Interactions, Engagement & Ecosystems (Logic + Emotion) 
5. Where Next for the News Release (PR Breakfast Club)
6. The Digitization of Research and Measurement (Metrics Man)
7. Katie Delahaye Paine's Accuracy Checklist for Public Relations and Social Media Measurement (The Measurement Standard) 
8. The Difference Between Making the News and Being the News (Social Butterfly)
9. Posterous Grows Up as a Blogging Platform (Danny Brown) 
10. Planning For Disaster: Communicators And PR Must Step Up (Copywrite, Ink)
11. PR pros need to write more like…gasp! Sales copywriters! (Mengel Musings) 
12. 4 keys to to building a social media editorial calendar (Communications Conversations) 
13. 57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources (Dave Fleet) 
14. 11 must-read posts about blogger outreach (Communications Conversations) 
15. Social Media Release: Evolution (PR Squared) 
16. 34 Reasons to Start a Blog (Conversation Agent)
17. Don’t Build Your Brand On A Third Party Platform (Social Media Optimization)
18. Want to get quoted in the media? Try a video expert advisory (As Media Changes) 
19. Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing (Communication Overtones)
20. Is PR Ready to Adopt a Standard Set of Measurement Principles? (The Buzz Bin) 
21. 5 Tips on Business Blogging With Minimal Resources (TopRank)
22. It's Time to Stop Collecting Facebook Fans (Ad Age)
23. Content curation: A required skill for digital-era communicators (Shel Holtz)
24. Newsroom Facebook Fans: Quality vs. Quantity (Journalistics)
25. Klout for Business: A Useful Metric –but an Incomplete View of Your Customer (Web Strategy)
26. Putting Words Into Action: PRSA’s New Social Media Policy (PRSAY) 
27. 96 Free Professional Blog Topics (Geoff Livingston) 
28. Consumer-Facing PR Means Business (Jason Kintzler)
29. ‘My Tweets Are My Own’ is a Bogus Line (Lauren Fernandez)
30. 10 Press Release Alternatives (Social Media Today)
31. Easy Strategies to Start Measuring Your Public Relations and Social Media (The Measurement Standard)
32. Q: What’s a new tool for public relations? A: Quora (PRSA Tactics)
33. Building Your Own PR or Social Media Measurement Index (Chuck Hemann)
34. Social Media Crisis Management: A No-Nonsense Guide (Mack Collier)
35. Becoming a Conscious Written Communicator (Brass Tack Thinking)

Whew. That's a lot of reading. Just like in the previous years, there are some source repeats, but I think they are worth it. I hope you take some time and go through this gift of public relations resources or just save it for later. Either way the birthday party is mine but the comments are yours.

PR people can measure social media. We just need to learn.

I want to be perfectly clear about something, I don't have a complete grasp of social media measurement. But I want to learn. Thankfully, the May 2010 Fort Worth PRSA professional development program was there to help. Katie Paine was our featured speaker and billed to provide morning and lunch sessions focused on key elements of measurement: engagement, including quantitative, qualitative, and new relationship metrics.

If we are going to be any good at using measurement, we must conquer fears. PR people spend too much time being afraid metrics will reveal that their program isn't working; afraid of what they'll hear; afraid they can't justify their program (or existence); and/or are afraid to admit that they don't know how to measure.

"The main reason to measure objectives is not so much to reward or punish individual communications managers for success or failure as it is to learn from the research whether a program should be continued as is, revised, or dropped in favor of another approach."
- Dr. James Grunig of the University of Maryland

Bottom-line, PR people spend too much time trying to justify our existence instead of showing business impact.

Old School vs. New School metrics
Old School Metrics:

• AVEs (Katie Paine wants to destroy Ad Value Equivalencies.) 
• Eyeballs
• HITS (How Idiots Track Success)
• Couch potatoes (I didn't quite understand this one)
• # of Twitter followers (unless you're a celebrity)
• # of Facebook Friends/"Likes" (unless they donate money)

New School Metrics:

• Influence = The power or ability to effect someone's actions
• Engagement = Some action beyond zero
• Advocacy = Engagement driven by an agenda
• Sentiment = contextual expression of opinion - regardless of tone
• ROI = Return on Investment - no more, no less. End of discussion.

Starting to sink in
Goals drive metrics, metrics drive results:

Goal - Reputation/Relationship
Metrics - Relationship scores, recommendations, positioning, engagement

Goal - Get the word out on mission/safety/civic engagement
Metrics - % hearing, % believing, % acting

Goal - Marketing/leads/sales
Metrics - Engagement Index, cost per customer acquisition, web analytics, sales leads, marketing mix modeling

One of the great things about Katie Paine's program is that she provided attendees with other excellent resources such as Don Bartholomew (MetricsMan) and Eric Peterson (Web Analytics Demystified.) It says something positive to me when speakers point people to other resources.

The graphic below is from Bartholomew's blog on the topic of the digitization of research and measurement and it helps us visually see what we need to measure:

Here's some thoughts from our speaker on the importance for PR people to measure:

Much more to learn
Katie provided the link to her presentation slides "Are we engaged yet? How to develop your engagement metric." She has opened up a wealth of information for attendees and those who could not make the sessions or carve out some time on her blog. I hope you will take some time to mine such treasures as the 27 conversation types, the seven steps to the perfect 21st Century Measurement Program, engagement on places over which you have no control, why you need a Kick Butt Index and much more.

Finally, I'd like to personally thank Katie for her gracious attitude and thoughtful demeanor while imparting some fantastic information. My seven pages of notes requires some time for reflection and application. (Oh and thanks for explaining Maine coon cats, talking politics and of course, geeking out a bit on NCIS.)

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• No More Excuses - Yes We Can Measure Social Media (socialmediabreakfast.com)
• Measuring ROI on social media with Katie Paine (kevin.lexblog.com)
• What Are Your Social Media Metrics? (socialmediatoday.com)
• Putting the Public Back in PR Measurement (conversationagent.com)