Struggles of an Extrovert

My name is Lauren Staley, and I am an extrovert. Dictionary.com defines an extrovert as an outgoing, gregarious person. Carol Bainbridge, Gifted Children Expert, notes, “Extroverts tend to “fade” when alone and can easily become bored without people around.” This statement could not be truer.

This past Saturday I found myself alone without anyone to hang out with for the first time in as long as I can remember. Almost all my friends left campus for one reason or another, and I had to stay around to work Saturday evening. I would be lying if I said my extroverted self wasn’t somewhat dreading my quiet Saturday afternoon. 

My intense need to be with people arose freshman year of college. As a freshman, and even into sophomore year, I suffered from the fear of missing out, or what has been affectionately shortened to a term used by today’s high school and college students as FOMO. Just like any college freshman I was scared if I was sitting in my dorm room instead of hanging out with people I would miss out on something fun or exciting.  It actually gave me a degree of anxiety to know people might be having fun without me.

By the middle of sophomore year I had firmly established my friend group and no longer feared I would miss out on something. However, I had developed a need to simply be with my friends during any spare moment of the day. Thirty minutes to kill before a meeting: go see friends. Eating dinner: do it with friends. Absolutely nothing to do: be with friends. I don’t get hooked on Netflix and my Pinterest activity goes way down during the school year because instead of during those kinds of leisurely activities, I would rather be doing something where I engage with others. 

As a senior, my fear of missing out and need to be surrounded friends has greatly diminished. I have finally accepted the fact that even if I am not always with my friends doesn’t change the fact that they will always be there for me. However, to look at my Saturday schedule and see it wide open with no one to hang out with made me uneasy.

Even though it was weird, I managed to fill most of the day doing things I would never do on a Saturday afternoon. I ate all my meals alone, did homework, scrolled through the entirety of all newsfeeds of all social media platforms, and even worked out. Yes, you heard correctly: I worked out, by myself, on a Saturday afternoon. As fun as it was to be alone for a day, I would prefer not to do it again for awhile. Call it a curse or call it a gift: I almost never get tired of being with people; especially all my friends in these pictures who make my life a brighter place.

Re-imagining Catalog Shopping

Sometimes the hardest part about a PR campaign is getting people to care about what you have to say or what you are promoting. You could have a show stopping event with lasers, free food and out of this world party favors but all those things are worthless if you end up with nothing to measure because you failed to get people to care about your product or your idea. In today’s day and age where people have an infinite number of things vying for their attention, in a society where instant results are the expectation, getting people to take notice of your brand or ideas can be difficult. 

IKEA’s latest advertisement promoting their 2015 catalog makes people take notice. With the rise of online shopping and the Internet, catalog shopping is becoming an archaic practice. However, furniture giant IKEA wants to keep the catalog alive as a way to drive sells to its company. In order to do so IKEA created an advertisement that changes that way people view catalogs.

This ad is great because the creators use the metaphor of top-notch touch screen technology to create enthusiasm for their paper catalog. The ad has an entertainment element because it is almost as if IKEA is poking fun of the latest and greatest high-tech devices society has become accustomed to using. Humor is also created by referring to the catalog as a “bookbook” which is a clever spin off names such as “ebook” or “ibook.”

The ad also grabs and keeps your attention because you can’t help but want to know what absurdly accurate thing IKEA is going to say about its “bookbook” next. The idea of using buzz words and phrases often only associated with technology to describe a physical book is intriguing and interesting. No one ever thinks of hardcopy books as having “high definition pages” and “tactile touch technology.” We only think of book as being outdated, old school and cumbersome. 

IKEA may actually be able to bring the use of catalog purchasing back to life with this ad because of the innovative and almost shocking way it challenges us to think about using a book. If you want to make people care about your idea, sometimes you have to open their minds to new ways of thinking. In my opinion, IKEA has done a great job with the bookbook!

Responsible Storytelling Done Right

Chapter 20 of "Share This" talk about three skills PR people need for the future of industry: storytelling, content and technology. The book notes storytelling gives brands “the capability to use digital channels to listen and speak to mass audiences directly and facilitate customer-to-customer conversations.”

One company implementing storytelling to speak to a mass audience is Budweiser. Every year Budweiser celebrates Global Be(er) Responsible Day which is observed in September to remind people to drink responsibly. This year Budweiser created an advertisement for Be(er) Responsible Day that I can’t help but love. It is a PR piece aimed to help spread the word about drinking responsibly through the use of an emotional story.

This year’s ad tells a story of a man and his puppy and the friendship they share together. The ad progresses to a night when the dog’s owner leaves the house for a night of drinking. The dog misses his owner dearly and whimpers and mopes only to be embraced by his owner the next morning. The ends with the hashtag: #FriendsAreWaiting.

Budweiser applied principles of storytelling as outlined in "Share This". Chapter 20 notes developing a story requires a deep understanding of the subject matter and an understanding of customers. By using the friendship between a man and his dog instead of using the friendship between a man and his family or his friends illustrates Budweiser did its homework on what matters to its customers when they choose to drink. This ad suggests when you drink and drive your decision has more implications than you might think. By emphasizing how drunk driving effects a pet’s unconditional love for you demonstrates Budweiser has a deep knowledge of its customers and knows what really matters to them.

This ad is beautifully crafted to communicate a very serious and important message. What’s great about this ad is Budweiser in no way condemns people’s decision to drink or lectures people about their behavior choices. Instead the ad relies on storytelling and emotions to make a powerful point.

Budweiser didn’t have to use any menacing music, deep voiced narrators or drunk driving statistics: They never even had to show a car because Budweiser knows it doesn’t need those things to get its message across.

Chapter 20 also suggests companies should think about how to make a campaign bigger than the sum of its parts. This public service announcement by Budweiser implements this idea by including a hashtag with the ad. Now people can have a conversation on social media about what it means to drink responsibly.  This ad was also created to be viewed across multiple social media channels such as YouTube and Twitter, not just on television. If you are looking for a good example of the principles of storytelling as outlined in "Share This" look to Budweiser because I think they did a great job.  

"Major" Misconceptions

As you may or may not know, it is my senior year here at Ohio Northern studying public relations and communications. Even though I am a senior, there are some things about being a public relations and communications major at Northern that haven’t changed over the past four years.

After going through all the obligatory introduction sessions at the beginning of the school year when people ask you for your name and major, I was again reminded of the all misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding my majors, and I would like to share them all with you.

The first struggle of being a public relations and communications major is the name itself. Every time someone asks me about my major I have to spit out an 11-syllable phrase.  Saying “I’m a public relations and communications major” is nowhere near as easy as saying “I’m a pharmacy student” or “I’m studying physiology.” Instead, I have to mentally prepare myself every time someone asks about my major to make sure I enunciate all the words and don’t get tongue-tied over all the syllables.

The next frustrating thing about my majors is I can’t even shorten it by abbreviating public relations. Believe me, I have tried, but it only creates confusion.  If I say I am a PR student the general response is: “Oh, so you are in HR?” No, I’m not. There is PR and there is HR. They are two very different field and most people don’t understand that right away.

Additionally, I have had some people assume public relations and communications is one major. Contrary to popular belief, I actually have two separate majors. A certain friend, who will remain nameless, went months before realizing I am actually studying two different majors. Then this dear friend still had to be convinced and accused me of “kidding around” about the whole thing. If you are reading this you know who you are and I still love you!

This next misconception about my majors is specific to ONU and makes me laugh every time. Some people do not know you can actually take classes in The Freed Center. When I tell people all my classes are in Freed, they give me a weird look sometimes. They think The Freed Center is just a magical place where there are only fancy dance shows and musicals.

Finally, no one understands what our firm does or what "practicum" means. I don’t even try to tell someone I am working on a firm project without explaining in detail what that means, otherwise all I get are puzzled looks. I received an award for outstanding firm member last year and my parents were confused about what that meant even though I have explained it to them several times. And let’s face it, I really don’t think anyone outside the major will ever understand what it means to get practicum hours. I used to think only pharmacy people or engineers had lingo, but really PR students struggle just as much to be understood by the outside world.

I do not hold anything against the people who have fallen victim to any of these assumptions and misconceptions about my majors. I am sure every major has certain aspects “outsiders” don’t understand. A blog post is just a great way for me to voice my struggles and hopefully give my fellow PR majors a good laugh.

Online Media Relations: PR's Critical Balancing Act

Public relations is a very multifaceted field of work. PR professionals can find themselves doing any number of things from event planning, to crisis communication to collaborating with the marketing team. In Part 5 of "Share This" the Chartered Institute of Public Relations presents a new area of work PR professionals must take responsibility for due to the prevalent use of the Internet known as online media relations. 

Part 5 outlines the need for PR professionals to adapt to the fluid and ever changing opportunities presented through social media. Press releases must be formatted differently to have maximum effect online and Twitter proves to be an important outlet for connecting with the media. 

Taking these things into consideration both scares me and excites me as a public relations major. Online media relations change the game for PR professionals and require a special set of skills to maintain a balance between abusing and embracing the use of online media relations. Based on the reading, I believe social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging sites present a huge advantage for those in the PR world. For example, Chapter 12 highlights how online newsrooms can be used to publish content to all shareholders instead of to a few journalists.  

In addition to maximizing the use of online press releases, social media makes building relationships and engaging with journalists and consumers just as important as ever. Chapter 16 of "Share This" says, “Having positive working relationships is a key to online media relations as it is to traditional engagement with journalists.” This excites me because not everyone gets to say their job is based on building and maintaining relationships. I love people and I believe there is value in getting to know someone beyond his or her LinkedIn profile. 

However, relationships are a lot of work and utilizing social media to build these relationships is a delicate balancing act. For example, the book suggests just because you can direct message a journalist on Twitter doesn’t mean you should abuse the privilege. "Share This" also presents a case study in which a food chain saw a huge drop in shares after publishing a blog post intended to be open and honest with its audience.

As a future PR professional, it is important to acknowledge online media relations as an area of public relations that cannot be ignored. With the right knowledge of the trade, online media relations prove to be a huge asset in achieving any range of business goals. However, learning how to properly use social media is a process as well as large burden to bear to those in the PR world because of the newness and the nature of dealing with people.