Public Relations Presentation and

Communication Skills (2011/10)

Lecture 5

Communication Planning

Developed and Presented by

Roy Ying, Msc., B.Comm.

Note: Pictures used in this power point file

is for academic Purpose only

DA010 - Professional Diploma in Public Relations - COMM6005EP

Table of Content

• Planning communications under a 6-stop models

• Practice non-verbals

• Choosing your words:

– 10 rules in effective language

Communications Planning

• Every piece of communication tool a PR practitioner produces should be done in conveying a message, including news release, speech, video, event, survey, award….even down to the souvenir

Class discussion:

How do you decide what message to convey? Who gives you the instruction?

Class discussion:

How do you decide what message to convey? Who gives you the instruction?

Step 1 - Identify your objectives

• Ask yourself the following types of questions:

– What do I want to achieve?

– What do I want the receiver to be able to do

or think as a result of my communication?

– In what ways am I trying to influence them?

Step 2 - Identify the recipients

• Who needs to know what you are communicating?

– Who absolutely must be informed?

– Who also needs to know?

– Whom it would be courteous to keep informed?

– Who do you think the message will be

forwarded to?

Step 3 - Choose the method or channel of communication

• The method or channel must be suitable for the purpose. Face to face, telephone, report or email are the main considerations.

• If the wrong approach is taken then communication can be misunderstood or breakdown completely.

• Choosing an obvious channel or method may not be straightforward and may need consideration depending upon who you are communicating to eg. customers, senior management, colleagues.

Step 3 - Choose the method or channel of communication

Step 3 - Choose the method or channel of communication

What medium would you choose?

• If you want to communicate with:

– Successful business leaders

– Post 80s young people

– Pregnant women

– Investors

– Politicians

– House wives

Step 4 - Match the message to the recipient

• You can only communicate well when:

– you have an accurate profile of the recipient

of the message

– you convey your understanding to the

recipient in the way you communicate.

• Pre-test your message

“It’s not what you want to tell them, it’s what they can hear.”

Step 5 - Get feedback

• True communication involves a complete loop between sender and recipient.

• Before moving forward to develop materials or activities, we urge you to pretest your messages with your intended audiences to determine if they are persuasive.

• How? – Surveys

– Focus Group

– Brainstorming

– Or simply ask few people in the target groups

Step 5 - Get feedback

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Step 6 – Develop Action Plan

• Purpose: To determine where, when, and how

each task will be done to successfully implement

your communication plan.

• Your action plan can be as simple or as complex

as your needs require, but at least:

– A listing of major activities, tasks, and subtasks

– The target date for completing each task

– The person responsible for ensuring each task is

completed.

Sample of action plan

Non-Verbal Communication

• Definition:

– It involves those nonverbal stimuli in a

communication setting that are generated by

both the speaker and his or her use of the

environment and that have potential message

value for the listener.

– Basically it is sending and receiving

messages in a variety of ways without the use

of words.

Examples of non-verbals

• touch

• glance

• eye contact

• volume

• proximity

• gestures

• facial expression / pause • intonation• dress• posture• smell• word choice and syntax• sounds (paralanguage)

Why is non-verbal communication important?

• Used to repeat the verbal message

• Often used to accent a verbal message

• Often complement the verbal message

• Regulate interactions

• May substitute for the verbal message

Cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communication

• General Appearance and Dress

• Body Movement

• Posture

– Bowing must be done right (Japan)

– No hands in pocket (Turkey)

– No hand shake to women (Arab)

• Eye contact

– Arabic cultures make prolonged eye-contact.

– Japan: avoid eye-contact to show respect

Cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communication

Touching – it’s culturally determined.

• Most African Americans touch on greeting but are annoyed if touched on the head

• Islamic and Hindu: typically don’t touch with the left hand as it is a social insult.

• Islamic cultures generally don’t approve of any touching between genders.

• Many Asians don’t touch the head

10 Rules of Effective Language

1. Simplicity: Use small words– PR communication is about trying to impress

people with your wealth of vocab.

– It’s about getting your message across

2. Brevity: Use short sentences– Better than a Post-it note

– Less complex than a poem

– Just somewhere in between depending on your audience

10 Rules of Effective Language

3. Credibility is as important as philosophy

– Hillary Clinton never did the voice for her ads.

She always had someone else talking about

her. That just didn’t resonate with people

because they wanted to hear what she had to

say.

– Barack Obama did exactly the opposite. All

his ads featured him, and they had a much

greater impact.

10 Rules of Effective Language

4. Consistency matters– People can get confused if you start mixing

metric and imperial system.

– When you start listing items, remember that you should never lose count or miscount

5. Novelty: Offer something new– When doing PR presentations, you want to

catch the media’s attention. They are more likely to carry the novelty words or phrases

Use novelty - Example

• Do you remember the title or the sub-title better?

Title

Sub-Title

10 Rules of Effective Language

6. Sound and texture matter

– Oil companies rarely use the word “drill” on

their websites. Instead, the word “explore”

has become popular.

– What’s the difference?

7. Speak aspirationally

– Unless you are Nelson Mendella, nobody is

going to listen to your monotonic speeches

10 Rules of Effective Language

8. Visualize

– Use it carefully. You don’t want people start focusing

on the screen over your words

– Generally, illustrations, graphs and tables are better

presented using visual aids

9. Ask a question

– Rhetorical questions will make the audience murmur to themselves to arrive at the message you want to

deliver.

– Instead of you declaring to them, they declare to

themselves

Ask a question - Example

• Start off by asking “Are you better off today than

your parents were at your age?”

• Then follow-up by asking “Are your kids going to

better off when they reach your age?”

• The answer to the first one is yes; the answer to

the second one is likely to be no

• It’s much better than a boring lecture on the

generation Y problems, wealth poverty gap,

education system, etc…….

10 Rules of Effective Language

10. Provide context and explain relevance

– If I simply list down these 10 rules without any

context or examples, how much can you

understand?

– This is why you are coming to listen to

lectures instead of self study at home.

Assignment 2

• Interview skills– In pairs. There will be 2 interviews

– The first interview will be student A acting as reporter and student B acting as interviewee

– Their roles will reverse in the second interview

– You pick the topic (approval from instructor required)

– You will come up with a list of questions for your interviewee (part of your assessment – to be submitted one week prior to the interview)

– Both interviews will be on video

– Students will then be asked to cross-criticize

Assignment 2

• Topics – by 7th lecture

• Initial questions – by 8th lecture

• Revised questions – by 9th lecture

• Presentation – 10th lecture

• Judging criteria:

– Quality of questions

– Interview skills

– Are you getting your core message across?