How Your PR Skills Can Help You Plan Your Next Event
One of the best parts about studying public relations is becoming equip with an array of skills that transfer into several different business areas. One of these areas is event planning. Whether you work as a public relations professional for a nonprofit, agency and everything in between, you will most likely come across a time when you need to host or plan an event to promote a cause, idea or project for the organization’s target audience. Here are four reasons having a background in public relations allows you to better assist in the planning and execution of a successful event.
1. You understand your target audiences. There is a great range of events you may be asked to help with, such as fundraisers, conferences, dinners, meetings and seminars. Some of these are more difficult than the others, but the first step in planning is understanding your target audience and media. Targeting the correct audiences and media is one of the first lessons taught to young public relations professionals.
2. You can write a public relations plan in your sleep. You have tactics and strategies for every communication channel to effectively convey messages to your audiences. You are already an expert at scheduling social media posts and email blasts, and you could recite your plan forwards and backwards.
3. You are prepared for anything. The crisis communication instinct inside of you helps you prepare for anything and everything that could go wrong. This leads to a stressful few pre-event weeks, but it ensures that you have plans B, C and D already laid out.
4. You analyze your results. You are trained to examine your work when it’s done and analyze the results. The same idea applies to events, too. When you analyze the results, you will be able to figure out what you did right and what you can do better the next time around.
So don’t worry the next time you are required to plan an event. You are already trained to not only get through this, but to hold a successful event.
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Brianna Truitt is a senior studying public relations and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. Follow her on Twitter @GottaBriTru and connect on LinkedIn.
