Education

The Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communications at Penn State University awarded $48,800 in research grants to 14 different projects today. Those projects that won grants include:

Brant Short (Northern Arizona University), "From Greenwashing to Social Advocacy: The Ethical Imperative in Green Branding."

Janas Sinclair (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Barbara Miller (Elon University), "The Values Basis of Public Response to Marketplace Advocacy and Effects on Environmental Attitudes."

Harsha Gangadharbatia and Kim Sheehan (University of Oregon), "Framing the Environmental Issue: Implications for Advocates."

Jacob Park (Green Mountain College), "BP and the Beyond Petroleum Campaign: Ethical Organizational Environmental Communication Case Study in the Business Context."

Joe Brewer (Cognitive Policy Works) and Tom Crompton (World Wildlife Federation, UK), "Cognitive Impacts of Environmental Communications."

Charles T. Salmon (Michigan State University), "Examining Unintended Consequences of Environmental Social Marketing."

Lee Ahern and Denise Bortree (Penn State University), "Changing themes in strategic environmental communications: A 30-year history of green ads in National Geographic magazine"

"We're funding projects this year that will inform theory and practice in this growing and critically important area," said the Center's Associate Director Cinda Kostyak. The deadline for the next round of grant proposals is March 5, 2010.

Even agencies run by college kids who charge non-profit clients nearly nothing are feeling the pressure of the economy. RealWorld IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) at Texas Christian needs $150,000 in donations to stay open.

The agency serves between 40-50 clients a year, with a handful of students (including the former Miss Nebraska) each putting in 15 hours a week. The firm brings in $40,000 a year. RealWorld opened in 2006 with a grant to TCU's Schieffer School of Journalism. Yes, Schieffer as in Bob Schieffer, host of Face the Nation on CBS.

The big expenses are the two full-time staffers who oversee the students, the space, and the equipment needed to do the full-service ad and marketing work including direct mail, brochures, websites, and PSAs.

[via Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

Lindsay Olson is a partner and recruiter with Paradigm Staffing (and PRNewser guest columnist). She specializes in helping companies and agencies find public relations and communications professionals throughout the United States. She has over ten years experience recruiting in the PR industry and also writes a career-related blog at LindsayOlson.com. This is her latest column:

A job search is not the most pleasant of life's experiences. It rarely comes without some rejection. The amount of factors outside your control that determine who gets the job are astounding. What you can control is yourself.

If you are called in for an interview, it's a safe bet you have the basic qualifications to do the job. The interviewer's goal is to answer two main questions: Can you do the job? And will you fit in?

These are the top four reasons I see qualified candidates get rejected for the job for reasons within their control.

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An interesting survey by e-Consultancy in the UK reveals some troubling stats for PR firms. Among the findings:

Two thirds of agencies surveyed (64%) have a separate Online PR division.

A fifth of clients (20%) are very satisfied with their agency's level of Online PR knowledge, 28% are moderately satisfied, 19% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 15% are mildly dissatisfied and 13% are very dissatisfied.

51% of companies are using PR agencies but a significant percentage are using search marketing agencies (29%) and web development agencies (22%) to develop and deliver Online PR strategy.

The report addresses a few topics we are passionate about here at PRNewser. One is that in this day in age, agencies should be moving away from "digital" or "social" departments. This should be the responsbility of all employees. Two, per a recent post by Richard Edelman, "Nowadays companies could care less about which firm (PR vs advertising vs direct) provides what function - whichever has the idea and ability to execute can get the order. This is a real opportunity for PR firms."

Download the full report here. Hat tip: Marketing Pilgrim.

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As Sunshine and Sachs partner Shawn Sachs recently mentioned to PRNewser, things aren't getting any easier for non-profits in the down economy. Perhaps in line with those challenges, The Council of Public Relations Firms and its members will be conducting a series of half-day workshops for non-profit organizations, beginning in Los Angeles on December 11th.

"Thriving and Surviving in Uncertain Times: Practical Digital Marketing Techniques for Nonprofits" is being held in conjunction with the Council's 10th anniversary and will take place in Los Angeles, Boston (January 14), San Francisco (January 27), Raleigh (February 19), as well as Dallas and Washington D.C. (dates to be announced soon).

Among the topics to be discussed are how non-profits can use social media and various other digital platforms to "cost-effectively communicate organizational messages, identify and engage constituents and applying to branding and marketing initiatives."

More information can be found here.

Last week, we told you about the Society for New Communications Research and the organization's survey with Middleberg communications that showed almost half of journalists use LinkedIn and Facebook to assist in reporting.

This week the SCNR has a survey out sponsored by Vocus. Titled "Exploring the ROI of Online Press Releases," the survey was completed by more than 420 marketing and PR professionals, as well as small business owners, and revealed that so called "traditional" media and "new" media were almost even in terms of desired audiences for releases. 73% indicated that it is "important to very important" to reach traditional media via their online press releases while 67.7% indicated that it is "important to very important" to reach bloggers and new media outlets.

"Respondents seemed to want to measure the value of their online releases as they would an ad or marketing campaign," stated Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu, SNCR research fellow and assistant professor in communication studies at Clemson University. "They stated that they would like to be able to measure 'eyeballs' and dollar value." While intriguing, not all PR pros found the survey results particularly revealing. As one agency VP told PRNewser, "Leave it to Vocus to turn the obvious into a survey."

The following is a guest post from Andrew Graham, senior associate at strategic communications firm Greentarget in New York.

Greentarget recently developed and executed a public relations strategy for DLA Piper's global technology summit. DLA Piper is a global law firm with 3,700 lawyers. Despite the fact that the event was not open to media, the Greentarget team was still able to generate significant coverage and buzz by using social media tools to disseminate relevant information to interested audiences.

Says Graham, "Our social media strategy became our sole approach to this summit." Read on for the full "mini" case study.

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Burson-Marsteller and PRWeek's recently released social media CEO survey shines some much needed light on just how executives view social media in relation to their personal and business lives. Our question would be for the 38% who replied they did not see social media as having an impact on a company's repuation - in this day and age, how so?

From BusinessWeek:

So while CEOs are on these [social networking] sites a lot (43% of the CEOs said they are on them often, including 19% who visit daily) it's not for business. Only 18% say they use them to communicate with customers and other stakeholders.

Why not?
48% say they lack relevance to the target stakeholder groups
37% voice concern about losing control of their message
28% worry about return on the investment
and
23% blame a lack of knowledge and capability within the company

Check out the complete survey findings here.

[Editor's note: Is it ironic that in a post on social media, on a PR blog, we are linking to a pdf file of the study?]

In this economy, undoubtedly many agencies are feeling the pinch of clients looking to scale down on PR or possibly even cut their agency all together.

And despite many a rational appeal on why this is probably not a good idea, it will inevitably be the case for many PR agencies. "Going silent," especially in a rough economy just speeds up the process of your brand falling out the consciousness of stakeholders. So, how do you convince your clients of this? We've developed five ways (or call them recommendations) on things you should do that can help keep your clients around.

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From the mediabistro.com education department:

mediabistro's Advanced Public Relations online course begins tonite. What will you learn? Here is an excerpt from the course details:

The swell of interest in public relations, unmatched by any other branch of marketing, has created an unprecedented number of opportunities in PR firms, corporations, non-profits, and consulting. But how do you take advantage of these growing opportunities? This class is designed for those with a foundation of public relations knowledge looking for an introduction to more senior PR functions. This class will focus on crisis communications and new PR opportunities, particularly in blogs and other forms of social media. You will gain the skills you need to climb the PR ladder.

There are still some slots available - click here to sign up.