Public Relations

Public Relations is one of the most important departments in any organisation. The main task of a public relations officer is to have a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and the public audience. It is even more vital for international organisations such as ELSA as it provides a link between other National Groups. 

Besides having relevant posts that will engage your target audience, a public relations officer also has to make sure ELSA is always up to date on current affairs as well as posting regular content to stay relevant. The work so far includes a number of Instagram stories about international events and days which are important to acknowledge as an international organisation. 

Apart from all this, one would need to enhance social media by making sure ELSA is being exposed to a large number of people. To do this, there needs to be a positive relationship between the National and Local Groups and ELSA International. The job of a public relations assistant is always to maintain and improve the relationship between the organisation and its target audience.

To be able to fully understand your target audience, research is vital. This is why ELSA is conducting market research during this 2020/2021 term. This market research will provide ELSA with all the information that is needed for ELSA to grow as an organisation. This helps ELSA understand the features which are lacking and needs improvements as well as what seems to be working well for it to continue as is. Apart from this, the market research is useful as it gives ELSA an outline of what their audience is interested in. Having an international audience is never easy but this helps ELSA have an insight on what each individual follower is interested in seeing from ELSA. This not only helps the Marketing Area but also all the other areas and projects.  

Promoting events is essentially what the Marketing Area is known for. However, the public relations department goes one step further into analysing the current market trends to see how ELSA could promote the post in the best way possible. In order to effectively promote posts, they need to interact with the audience in some way, hence, the job of a public relations officer is to ensure that the post is engaging and the response is positive. One way to do this is to research social media algorithms to ensure that ELSA has a high reach with every post. By posting at the ideal time, ELSA’s posts have a higher chance of getting many likes and comments which will help the post gain an even higher audience. It is of utmost importance to research as much as possible to ensure that ELSA’s social media is up to date with market trends. Finally, another aspect of being a public relations officer is to draft descriptions in a way that will engage the audience into writing comments, therefore, boosting the algorithm. This, along with posting stories with a swipe up link and questions, help boost the posts which will in turn boost ELSA in general.