El relat, la comunicació i la universitat

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En Kyle Christie és un investigador anglès que segueixo regularment i que fa temps que proporciona bones idees en el camp de la comunicació de les institutcions d’educació superior. Per exemple, diu aquesta mateixa setmana a Social media in public relations: part of core skills? que una cosa són relacions públiques, una altra els social media, i una altra els mitjans digitals.

Perhaps more than any other area of PR, social media is practised everyday by those in the sector in an entirely personal capacity, be it updating Facebook, watching YouTube and so on. It’s not an alien technology, but a familiar landscape to all. Those just entering the PR sector are likely to come to it with a fairly comprehensive understanding, as they’ll have used these platforms for years already.

But with limited time and resources, how realistic is it to ensure your whole team is trained up in all areas? We may all be using social media, but digital is another area, even as the technology becomes more accessible.

Cada cop és més fàcil fer servir les eines que hi ha a la nostra disposició per difondre informació, però també la velocitat a la qual surten coses noves és alta, i a vegades cal tenir unes competències digitals (informàtiques) elevades. Trobar el punt d’equilibri és convenient.

En relació a les relacions públiques a l’educació superior, el propi Christie esmentava al seu blog una entrada de MeetContent titulada The Future of Public Relations in Higher Ed on s’entrevista professionals del sector:

there is still a need for press coverage and relationships with the media, but the nature of those relationships is changing and the content they are built around is shifting. The traditional press release is not enough anymore, and we can’t let it become a crutch. Innovation is difficult, but essential.

En aquestes entrevistes s’hi esmenta el concepte de relat (storytelling):

Given the state of the news media these days, colleges and universities don’t have much choice but to take storytelling into their own hands

El relat universitari està fet de petits i de grans històries:

[…] room for you to tell smaller but still important or interesting or just fun stories that might not catch the interest of the media, but that your audience appreciates.

M’agrada el que s’hi esmenta quant als públics als quals cal fer arribar el relat universitari:

With increasing attacks on public spending for research and increased questioning about the value of pursuing a college education at all, I’d argue it is more incumbent upon us than ever to get our own stories out there to the audiences that care about us the most: our alumni; our current students, faculty, and staff; the parents and families of our students and alumni; our local community.

Dependent de l’audiència, cal comunicar de formes diferents:

to communicate with segmented audiences — prospective students, current students, alumni, parents and the like — then we should definitely reevaluate our content types and how we present the stories. Depending on the audience, a 90-second video may be more appropriate than a press release, or a lengthy article in the alumni magazine.

PR/media relations shouldn’t begin and end with the press release. Part of effective media relations is providing value to the reporter. So maybe it’s a list of faculty experts who can comment on a current event. Maybe it’s posting audio or video online of your broadcast-ready professors so that a journalist can see who will be a quality interview. Maybe it’s curating a Twitter list of all of your institution’s accounts so that the local higher ed beat reporter can easily check in with multiple units at once. Even small things, like on our news site, we always link a faculty member’s name to his or her directory page so that it’s easy for the reader to contact them for follow-up.

I de les notícies…

We now write shorter stories about a broader range of topics. It’s easier to adapt these into something to send out as a press release, rather than the other way around.

I pel que fa a twitter i flickr…

our office has talked about creating a set on Flickr that contains high-resolution images that reporters can download if they’re covering something related to us. And I’m sure there is something brilliant I could be doing with Twitter Favorites that I haven’t thought of.

Realment un parell de posts molt interessants de cara a la comunicació de les universitats.