Building Effective Media Relations

Introduction:

In today’s society, public relations professionals are employed in a wide variety of settings in business, government and nonprofit organizations. The goal of this course is to develop the creative skills to manage strategies of communication and public relations. It will teach you the proper channels of communication, and will explain some useful techniques on how to make use of them. It also covers how to write for various media channels and address different types of audience.

Targeted Groups:

• Public relations officers and other key personnel in the organization , particularly PR Managers
• PR Professionals
• Managers and Supervisors in the areas of personnel, marketing, sales, training and administration.
• Managers and employees involved in media activities will also benefit from this course.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Handle Media in good and bad times.
• Handle the publicity, public image and publications of the organization effectively.
• Acknowledge the media effect and the different types of Media.
• Acknowledge the ideal practices for conducting press releases, press conferences and other media-related events.

Targeted Competencies:

• Verbal and non-verbal communication
• Presentation skills
• Influencing
• Evaluating
• Decision making
• Public speaking

Course Content:

Unit 1: Public Relations and Communication:

• Public Relations and its main function.
• Planning and implementing campaigns.
• Theories of communication.
• The nature of mass communication.
• Spreading the Corporate message.

Unit 2: Differences Between Marketing and PR:

• The major differences between advertisement, and public relations.
• How to build integrated publicity models.
• Facilitating PR tools and practices in marketing.

Unit 3: Media and Public Relations:

• What is media? Different types of media.
• The history and nature of propaganda.
• The ethical standards of global media.
• The relation between public relations and diversified media outlets.
• Creating media lists.

Unit 4: Audience and Public Opinion:

• Determining the key audience of an organization.
• Prioritizing and customizing messages for each targeted audience.
• Choosing the ideal media outlet for each of the targeted audiences.
• Measuring public opinion surrounding an issue.
• Issue Management and how to modify public opinion.

Unit 5: The Essential Practices of a PR Representative When Handling Media:

• Creating newsworthy stories through events.
• Handling media in times of crises.
• The key components of a press release.
• The art of writing a press release.
• Press conference preparations.
• The art of public speaking.