Public

Public is a group of people who have same interest, preferences, and requirements. In some definitions, public is considered a community as a whole. In PR, public means target audience, opinion leaders of target audience, and potential customers.

Public Relations consider public is target audience of the organisation, people who have power to influence target audience or work as opinion leaders, and people who can prefer our products or services in near future.  

What pubic I belong to?

I am here in Manitoba as an international student.  I am a part of The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg.

• Canada
• Manitoba
• Winnipeg
• University of student
• International students

Being a part of public I am a student, I can be a target audience of various organisations; who can sell their products and services to me. I am young and capable enough to take my decision on my own.  These companies can perceive me their customer or potential customer.

• Home rent agencies
• Hotels and restaurants
• International student association
• PR and communication associations and societies like CRPC, CMA, and IABC
• Health insurance or general insurance
• Banks and financial institution  
• Cell phone companies and service providers
• Books and publications
• Laptop and notebook companies

Consider public a community as a whole is not a good strategy because everybody has different likes and preferences “Even twin brothers are not alike.” It can be categorised on the basis of various characteristics.

 Why Vikas is Different from Public?

Geographic Factor- It includes geographic region, metro city, small city, village, density, and climate.

Demographic- It includes family size, family life cycle, gender, education, occupation, income, social class, generation, nationality, product usage.

Psychographic- It includes personality traits, lifestyle, value and beliefs, motivation, and perception.  

What’s a typical week like?

-      In PR/communications, Ankit’s typical week consumes about 10-20 hours. He gathers information, finds people, writing, editing are some of the key tasks that he does. He also interviews people to collect information and sometime direct interview to publish in magazine. The best interview he conducted was of Stella’s owner. After that he does analysis of articles, those are going to publish in SHOUT magazine. Ankit works to communicate with business students about current issues and corporate organizations.

           

                                                                  Ankit Bansal

                                                   Communication Executive, BASA

   

     Tell me about a project you worked on that you are especially proud of.

-          Being a communication officer he looks after all the activities of Shout! Magazine, blog, and website posts of the Business Administration Student Association. In which, he provides the information about the trends in the business community. The mission of their magazines is to prepare business students for Canadian business environment and become their success partner. Ankit said, they organize events time to time for student orientations, mentorship, career growth, and job placements.   

           What do you wish you would have known before starting you are career in PR?

-       Ankit told his networking skills, writing skills, and outgoing personality has vital aspects of PR. He said before working in PR industry you have to create your PR. He believes to be successful in PR industry you should be creative enough to come up smart ideas to make and implement communication plan. He says his reactiveness also helped him to upscale his career in communication. 

    

     How important is writing in your career?

 Writing and editing is very important and core aspect in PR. He believes the better writer you are, the better milestones you can achieve in PR. You can definitely find people who can do this for you but you are not gaining anything without writing skills. Without writing skills a PR professional is just like a gun without bullets. Therefore, you must know all the nuts and bolts of creative persuasive writing; to be a better writer you must be a good reader. 

Have you ever worked for an agency, how is agency life different from corporate PR life?

      

 Ankit has never worked for a PR agency. He started his PR career with BASA.  

  

 What three tips would you offer someone just starting out in PR?

-          Ankit suggested, to be successful in PR profession, you must be confident, enhance your writing skills, and meet as many people as you can to learn and build network. Creativity is the second thing, which can lead you to highest altitude of communication industry. Furthermore, he suggested that you should keep your eyes and ears open to  current industry and communication trends, it enhance your thinking ability and decision making process.  

 What has surprised you the most about working PR?

Public Relation is an interesting profession but every coin has two sides. Ankit feels very bed when any PR professional, PR agency, and organization use unethical mean of communication for public relations or any false issue to gain publicity. Ankit believes that we should always stick with our ethics and values.   

 How does technology affects your daily work?

In last a few years technology has changed dramatically and changing every day and will keep changing. But it made big impact on day to day life. If you talk about PR context, it made a significant impact and made it easy to reach out your target audience such as creative websites, blogs, and various groups. Technology is helpful for small and medium scale and non-profit organizations to reach out target audience. 

Since my schooling, I am interested to know how organizations make and maintain positive images. My   business and marketing studies inclined my passion for Public Relations. Now being a student of Public Relations, I am learning how we can make a creative public relations plan to reach out target customers and gain their favourable attention.  

Some people think PR is only about the advertising and announcements. PR involves different and wide concepts; it encompasses press releases, crisis management, social media, events, events sponsorships, media relations, gifts, public-service activities, and corporate social responsibilities.

I strongly believe that PR is better than advertisement; it creates word of mouth which leads to greater awareness and customer satisfaction. When a product expert, like a doctor, suggests your product that is more effective, there is more probability that customer will buy it.  Smart public relations strictly involve healthy relations with media to get positive favour.

PR planning needs 100% strategic and smart thinking to make and execute communication plan. We have less control on activities and messages because it is circulated by unpaid media. Once it goes to media, it takes time to change it. Today’s competitive business environment requires quick responses on an organization's image related issues .   

The more I learn about it, the more curious I am because “Desire of the knowledge goes up with the acquisition of it.” PR is a limited field to work in but it’s fun. In addition, I always like to learn new tact of media and branding, which is a supplement for PR. I also use PR tools in everyday life.  

From a career perspective, PR is an interesting field for me. I like Public Relations a lot because you can show your creativity and can come up with new ideas. Moreover, it’s a field where you work on new things, interact with new people every day, and never feel bored. I have a passion for PR, and “When skills and passion meet together, you can expect a master piece.”  

  

Learning is never ending process; I want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of PR to become a successful PR executive. In a nutshell, I would suggest that technology, business environment, and media  are changing every day. To keep yourself up to date, you must keep learning, not only to sustain in industry, but also to exceed.