A Happy Ending to a Stressful Semester


Public Relations has a lot more to it than one may think. In the beginning of the semester, I thought it was just making sure your company looked good. Though this is a part of Public Relations, it isn’t the whole thing. Public Relations is also making or changing plans to make sure that the company is doing their very best. It’s analyzing every single aspect of a company to ensure that every single thing they’re doing is earning the very best possible outcome.

In my first blog I used the quote “[PR involves] anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinions, attitudes and issues that might impact, for good or ill, the operations and plans of the organization” (About PR). What I failed to do was dig deeper into that quote and find that along with just analyzing the current situation, PR involves researching what you can do to improve a company, making plans, and sometimes implementing said plans in changing or improving a company or situation. Later in the blog, I discussed the difference between PR and propaganda. Had I written that blog today, I would have discussed the differences between PR and advertising, marketing and journalism, though in some situations propaganda and PR could be confused.

Throughout the semester, I have been working to create a campaign book for Shefit, a small athletic wear company specializing in maximum support sports bras. Throughout this process, I have learned a lot about what it is that PR is. When starting the project, I believed that PR was primarily running social media, maintaining a good reputation, and keeping in contact with customers. Though these are all key aspects of the field, there is so much more.

I didn’t realize until I was writing the strategy part of my plansbook that as someone in PR, you could make recommendations that would change the entire company. This makes a lot of sense though. Why would you spend hours doing research and analyzing the current situation of the company, the customer bases wants and needs, and then not make company changing decisions.

I also learned that PR is hard. People (not me, obviously) often think that both advertising and PR are easy fields, and I’ve spoken to several people in the major that have told me they’re only doing this because it’s the easiest major at GV. I knew it wasn’t true going into this class, but leaving the class I am certain. Not only is it difficult to do primary and secondary research on a very specific topic, but coming up with 9 different strategies to improve their Millennial influence, and increase their sales isn’t easy. It takes someone with a lot of creativity and a lot of skill to concisely put all of their ideas into one carefully planned, 55 page plans book.

Overall, I am very pleased with how this semester went. Before class I had been told that this was the hardest class in the major, but I would come out of it feeling like I could take on any PR project, and that’s true. Having (nearly) completed my plansbook, I feel extremely proud with how it turned out and I feel ready for any task that any internship or job may throw at me.


The Social Media Iceberg

Assignments, Uncategorized

Social Media is a huge part of public relations, and it’s becoming more relevant as technology interweaves itself into everybody’s day to day lives. Nicole Matejic compares social media to an iceberg (2015). The comparison between the two seemingly unrelated things, is that there is a small amount of them available for viewing to the public. An iceberg is significantly larger underwater than it is above. This is true for social media in regard to public relations as well.

Above water, or what’s easily accessible to the public, is the organizational social media channels. This includes all public social media, your Facebook, your Twitter, etc. All of the magic behind crisis communications, along with analytics, which are infinitely important, is what lies below the surface (Matejic, 2015). An analogy made in the book, says “Much like those onboard the Titanic that fateful night in 1912, crisis communicators looking at the social media landscape without the information that lies beneath the surface of all social networks — their data — are steaming toward disaster” (Matejic, 2015, pg. 6).

The data that they’re referring to includes, “the geographical locations of your audience, peak post-engagement times, age and gender aggregated data, externally referring sites (such as your blog or website), how many clicks per URL in a post (further broken down into geographical regions), your audience’s aggregated interests (both professional and personal), and which type of post they are more likely to interact with (picture, video, text and so on)” (Matejic, 2015, pg. 6). Without this very important data, a company would have no clue which types of content are succeeding, and which are sinking (pardon my pun), both during a crisis, and day to day.

This type of data didn’t always exist though, in fact, the channels that we receive this data from is fairly new as well. In the past, someone in public relations would spend more of their time writing press releases, to give on air, release in print or publish online (Boitnott, 2017). Nowadays, social media is the primary channel for a company to release official information, but this isn’t the only thing it’s used for.

Public Relations specialists also use social media to find influencers, to identify brand threads, to influence journalists stories, to swiftly react to negative press, and to make announcements (Boitnott, 2017). With a world as digital as ours is today, it’s hard to imagine how a company ever interacted with their customers as much as they can today, considering all they have to do now to show they’re seeing what someone is saying is ‘like’ their tweet.

In addition to all of the ways that PR can use social media, it’s important to realize that the goal of the two are nearly identical: to create a two-way conversation between an organization and the people it wants to influence. When a company uses social media, it becomes a lot easier for them to interact with their audience, and also to tell their story. Posting on facebook is free, whereas a commercial can cost thousands of dollars, but the one thing to remember is that “Storytelling is a constant effort. Be strategic and plan your stories and the mediums you will use to tell them” (Pollard, 2016, para 9).

As a person working in public relations, it is essential to remember the iceberg analogy. Some things are going to work better than others, and it’s all going to depend on what you’re promoting, and who you’re promoting it to. In order to figure out what is going to work the best for your specific situation, it’s necessary to be checking the analytics of your social media, and adjusting your plans accordingly.

Boitnott, J. (2017). 5 Ways You Should Be Using Social Media as Your Top PR Platform. Inc., Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/bhow-social-media-is-now-your-primary-public-rel.html

Pollard, C. (2016). Why You Should Combine Your PR And Social Media. Huffpost. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-pollard/why-pr-and-social-media-i_b_12568802.html

Matejic, N. (2015). Social media rules of engagement: Why your online narrative is the best weapon during a crisis. Milton, Qld: John Wiley & Sons Australia.

(PR)esident Eisenhower












Collaboration with Technology








Virtual Reality Could Take Over








Generation Like











Technology at ArtPrize Through the Years


Technology is everywhere. It’s a part of our education system, it’s making its way into the workplace, so obviously, it has made its way into ArtPrize. ArtPrize is the largest juried art contest in the world and it takes place in Grand Rapids. It generates a massive turn out every year, and everyone has a favorite piece of art that they want to win. When ArtPrize began, there were physical voting sites you would need to visit, and wait in line at, to cast your votes. In 2014 they launched an app that could be used to vote. This really simplified the process, and in return, more people began voting. Every entry had a different code, and with that code you could easily vote for that piece of art in the app. The only way they could really simplify the process is if they added a QR code to each voting block so voters could just scan a code to submit a vote.


                                                                                   The man who created this piece, made it out of literal garbage, and other recycled items, and lived in it for the entire duration of ArtPrize.

To learn more about the voting process click here.

When they launched the app in 2014, they called it a “Technology Suite” and it truly is. The app that they released had a collection of impressive features. One of the major features they released was a “list” feature. Essentially, visitors could create their own lists of pieces of art. This was used one of two ways. People could either get on the app before they went and create lists of art they wanted to see, or they could make lists as they walked around, for friends or family to view. There were also lists created by ArtPrize jurors that contain pieces that they were excited about, or pieces that are trending in the public vote (Woods 2014). 

Every year since the app came out, they have released an updated version of their app. This year, the app included a “Discover View,” which “delivers ArtPrize blog and event calendar integration — continuously updated with important ArtPrize announcements, special events and on-the-fly happenings” (Woods 2016). Along with this, they updated their map. The map was extremely helpful when walking around Grand Rapids. It made it easier to find the art that you’re looking for, or anything else you may be searching for, the map “help[ed] visitors easily navigate to accessible venues, public restrooms, and public parking options” (Woods 2016).

Along with technology coming from the management of ArtPrize, it is becoming more prominent in the actual art. For the past couple years Honda has been doing a “Design & Drive” competition. Not only is this a good way to advertise their company, but bringing cars into the competition is adding yet another aspect of technology. Although they’re painting on the technology, it is interesting to see how Honda is making ArtPrize a bit more modern each year.


As the years go on, people are also trying to make more of a statement about the impact of technology on the world. This year one of the pieces that stood out to me was a piece by Douglas Rogge, called Cityscapes Around the Lake. In his piece he used old circuit boards to create a cityscape, and he attached them to a background that he painted to look like a lake. I think it’s interesting how artists are letting technology influence them. Whether they’re making art with technology, or in his case, making art out of technology.unnamed-2.jpg

They have also greatly increased their Internet presence in the past eight years. ArtPrize has a FaceBook, a Twitter, and Instagram, a Tumblr, and various other social media platforms. This year ArtPrize even had a SnapChat filter, or GeoTag. This not only helps them reach out to other audiences, but it extends the ArtPrize magic to places much further than West Michigan. Overall it is clear that ArtPrize has been greatly improving their technologies each year, it’ll be interesting to see what they do next.


Design & Drive Art Competition | West Michigan Honda Dealers. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://www.westmichiganhondadealers.com/design-drive/

How To Vote. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2016, from https://www.artprize.org/vote

Kaczmarczyk, J. (2014). ArtPrize 2014: New tech tools will change how you experience the sixth event in Grand Rapids. Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://www.mlive.com/artprize/index.ssf/2014/09/artprize_2014_new_tools_will_change_how_you_experience_the_sixth_event_in_grand_rapids.html

Woods, J. (2014, September 4). ArtPrize Launches 2014 Technology Suite. Retrieved October 11, 2016, from https://www.artprize.org/blog/2014-technology-suite

Woods, J. (2016, July 26). ArtPrize Launches New Mobile Experience. ArtPrize. Retrieved October 11, 2016, from https://www.artprize.org/blog/artprize-introduces-new-mobile-experience

Internet Privacy: How it’s Decreasing Through the Years










