Week 5
Lecture: PR strategy and tactics

Demonstrate the rationale for undertaking research

Research is undertaken so that PR practitioners would be aware of public opinion that it works with. It is important as it would tell them of what future steps to take and what to avoid.

Examine Research at diff stages in the PR relations process and the contributions it can make at each stage

PR practitioners are able to undertake qualitative or quantitative research methods. Qualitative research is more concern about the in depth information that it is able to retrieve from a small size sample while quantitative research base itself on statistics on a sizeable amount of sample.

There are also different stages of research.

Research at the input stage mainly requires identifying the problem and understanding the audience in relations to the objectives of the program. This will then determine what strategies or tactics to undertake in the implementation stage. All this will be taken into account at the impact stage which will show the outcome of previous stages and also answers the main question of the research.

Plan research to understand and measure public opinion

Public opinion is the sentiments of the general public on certain matters. PR practitioners need to take into account that public opinion is not based on facts but rather on perceptions. The majority opinion might not account for other pockets of society. Also the reason as to why similar opinion are made might be differ.

A public opinion poll might be drawn up while keeping in check details like age, gender and family background and other socioeconomic factors. The measuring instrument, frequency of testing and awareness of the study results also plays a part in in shaping public opinion.

Issues management

This in relation to how PR practitioners handle a situation such as maintaining its neutrality also keeping communication lines open and keeping any crisis from escalating.

Involve ‘issues scanning’ and ‘issues monitoring’.

Community Engagement

PR practitioners need to recognise the importance of community to organisations like itself and the client that it represents.

Following parts of the model made by the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Public Participation Scheme, I will discuss how local PR practitioners might take this approach with Grassroots Resident Corners (GRC)

Education	Consultation	Joint Planning	Joint Decision Making	Enpowerment
The promise to the public
Keeping the RCs informed of research undertakings.	To take in the opinions and feedback of residents with regards to the research undertakings.	Work hand in hand with grassroots leaders to ensure that residents’ opinions and feedbacks are addressed with regards to the research undertakings	Cooperate with GRCs for guidance in providing solutions for the public from which has been retrieved form the research findings.	Implementing what GRCs and ultimately what residents want.

(Synott Gae, 2009) Source: The promise’ International Association for Public Participation

Behavioural Change Programs

This is upon consideration on what the current trend of behaviour is and how PR practitioners are able to sway this behaviour in its favour.

Understand and discuss some of the realities and challenges of PR research

Budget

PR research requires a sizeable amount of money and at times, this might not be possible as funding is also crucial for PR activities.

Certain things that PR practitioners can do:

1. Findings need to be of value to the research. How the information is collected and what role it plays in the research.

2. It is important to refer to previous researches to back your research.

3. Using students’ market research as a resource.

4. Using different media mediums ranging from print media to new media.

5. Using a smaller sample, but still sizeable enough to prove as qualitative findings.

Do research once

There needs to be a specific focus on where the research will lead to. Also PR needs to know its research options as well as the time frame that it needs to adhere to.

Synnott, Gae (2009) says that ‘the best approach is to recognise its contribution an allocate time and budget for it as a standard part of your project management’.

PR practitioner has to make sure that sample is representative of the total population.