Why should you join?

As a public relations major you are involved in your on campus Public Relations Student Society of

America (PRSSA) chapter. PRSSA is a pre-professional organization and with membership comes with an unlimited amount of benefits and experiences. This past week, I worked with my friend Allie discussing the benefits of joining PRSSA and even had a testimonial from our president, Hannah.

For this project, Allie and I decided to focus on PRSSA because we believe more individuals across campus should be involved and want to get the benefits known to our campus. One of the main benefits is you are able to enhance your career by attending network events, such as national conference, national assembly and regional conference. Throughout our podcast we talked about the benefits of each of theses and Hannah talked for a bit about her experience at national conference last year.

When talking with Hannah, two questions we asked her was, would you recommend to attend at least one national conference and the other was, what are your suggestions for individuals that are worried about cost? Hannah answered these by explaining all the benefits you would receive by attending and how national conference isn't just about networking, but you're also there with friends and you have a fun time exploring a new city with them. Now looking at the financial question, Hannah's suggestion was to apply for scholarships throughout the year. Her other suggestions was if you know you're going to be attending, then start saving up over the summer when you're working.

Another way to get involved in PRSSA is to take a leadership role and be on the executive board. We talked with both Hannah, two time president and myself, firm director about our leadership roles and what our jobs actually entail.

With Hannah we talked about her time as president and things she found to be both a challenge and a reward. She talked about how her main challenge last year was getting individuals to do what needed to be done, and felt as if she was doing more than one persons job. The reward she gets from being president is seeing individuals in her chapter thrive, whether it be at a conference or an internship. Allie also talked with me about my role as assistant firm director and what I do. As assistant firm director I help our firm director with whatever is needed and help keep track of each project happening in our firm, True North PR. Currently I am working on Bateman and doing some outsourcing for an agency in Texas. Other individuals in firm are working on Up to Us and making the national debt aware to other students and KIND, a campaign focused on healthy eating and making the world a little better. As Hannah stated above, I enjoy when my classmates succeed with a client because this means we are doing something right.

Being involved in PRSSA for a little under a year, I never would have thought I would be this involved and be sitting on the executive board. PRSSA has truly made me a better leader and I would change my experiences or involvement in PRSSA for anything. The ONU PRSSA Chapter has many social media platforms, go check out our website or search ONU PRSSA on Facebook and Twitter to view our page. We have meeting every Thursday at 7 p.m. in PAC 132, if you want to learn more about this organization. Who know, you may make a new friend or two, I know I sure have. To learn more about the opportunities PRSSA can provide feel free to go and listen to my podcast, as this is a brief overview of the topics covered.

Fall Break

This year, just like the last two years, we had a break around Columbus Day called Fall Break. Just like every other year, I went home during this break, but only through Sunday as I needed to be back for my internship Monday morning. Fall break is always one of my favorite breaks as it signifies you've made it halfway through the semester and remainder of the semester will go by in a blink of the eye.

After four long hours in the car Friday afternoon, I finally made it home. When I got home the only ones actually there were the dogs as my dad was reffing volleyball and my mom was dropping my sister off at school for the Homecoming game, which I was also planning on attending. About 5 minutes after I pulled in the driveway and unpacked the car, my mom came home and it was time to go to the game. Walking into the game, I was tackled by my sister who had been waiting for my arrival. She also had friend taking photos of the who thing, which were really cute to see after. Just being at the Homecoming game made me feel old, as it had been three years since my Homecoming game. I was able to catch up with some old friends at the game, but felt so out of the loop with everything they were talking about, as I'm four hours away from Coopersville. After the game, I went and met up with my dad who was out with some family friends. By the time midnight rolled around I was all ready for bed, as it had been a long day with work, school and all the driving. 

When I woke up Saturday morning everyone was up and getting ready to leave as my dad had to ref volleyball and my mom and sister had to help my grandma out at her orchard. I spent the majority of my morning running around doing errands that needed to be done before I left. I made a stop to my grandma's orchard during the afternoon to visit my mom and sister, but also to visit my grandma and get some fresh apples. When I got back home, I spent the remainder of my day sitting on the couch and watching college football with the dogs, waiting for everyone to get home. Once the family all arrived home, I continued to watch football and they would just come downstairs and watch with me or in my sisters case, she wanted me to come to her room and hang out with her. Close to 10:30 at night I went and met up with a friend at half off appetizers at Applebee's where we caught up and continued chatting until midnight. By the time I returned home everyone was asleep, and I was right behind them. 

Sunday morning we got up early to go to church and then went out for breakfast afterwards. When we returned home it was close to 10 a.m., so I started to pack as I was heading back to ONU and wanted to get there before it go dark out. I dropped my sister off at my grandma's around noon, went back to home to say good bye to my parents and then the four hour journey back to Ada began. After about an hour of driving, I took a little detour to East Lansing to visit my brother at Michigan State University. I stayed there for close to two hours where I took him to the store, as he isn't allowed to have a car on campus. I left East Lansing close to 3 p.m. and had about three hours of driving ahead of me. I arrived back in Ada close to 6 p.m. and I was so happy to just sit and do nothing as I was exhausted from my weekend and all the driving I had done. 

The Role of a Public Relations Practitioner

In chapter 15 of Share This we took a look at the role of a Public Relations Practitioner. The role of a

PR practitioner includes advising, guiding and training and is not limited to just listening to and engaging with the media.

As a PR practitioner there are a variety of areas you can focus on. "These areas are crisis management, issues management, relationship management, reputation or image management, resource management, risk management and strategic management." (Mediamiser, 2015) All of these areas have different aspects to them, but in the end the goal of the PR practitioner is to solve the problem and keep their company or client in the best light possible with the public.

As a PR practitioner it's important to make yourself known on Twitter. By becoming involved on Twitter, you are creating an active channel for yourself and making yourself known. When using Twitter it's also important to follow your current contacts, as you will want to stay in the loop with what is going on with them, especially if you're looking at pitching a story to a particular reporter and you see via Twitter a similar story has already been published by this particular reporter. While on Twitter it's important to build a strong follower base, as it will make you look more credible as a PR practitioner.

When working with clients, it's important to know what type of social media will be best suited for this particular client and their company. As a PR practitioner you may use Hootsuite or a website similar to it. Hootsuite allows you to not only look at all your social media platforms in one place, but also allows you to schedule posts in advance.

As a future PR practitioner I know that having a presence on social media will be both important to my career and my company. Being on social media won't be enough for my career, as I will need to have and maintain a credible source when handling information via social media. In my future career I may have one major area of focus or I may have a variety, at this time, I haven't decided. When working as a PR practitioner it will be important for me to maintain a good relationship with the media because I will want them to see me as a credible source of information for my company or client I am working with.

(2015). Retrieved October 11, 2015, from https://www.mediamiser.com/resources/pr-glossary/public-relations-management-roles/