showing my skills
Those who know me well will be quick to admit how much I love to be useful or feel like my talents are being used efficiently.
It’s awesome to be able to say, then, that this past week has been the most effective and comprehensive in regards to my grant work I’ve had since I arrived almost two months ago.
Today, I want to share some solidified details of what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with.
I’ll also get into some of the specifics of exactly what “doing public relations” means, especially in the context of cultural barriers and delving out of the business space with these principles.
But you already know what we have to do before any of that ;)
That’s me and some good friends at Parque de la Familia, an urban park with water displays and fun lights at night.
The route to one of my new work spaces includes this fun bridge in a park called Del Poeta
One of my favorite activities with friends here is a volleyball variant called wally. It’s a great way to let out my competitive side and spend time with great people.
As many of you have already read, the reason I’m here is to research and actively practice public relations principles as an altruistic tool, mostly outside of the business world.
My initial goal was to explore this possibility exclusively with the Quechua population here. Instead, though, what my grant is shaping up to be is a combined effort working with three separate organizations.
The beauty of this format is that I’ll be able to work on using PR as a beneficial tool for three very different demographics within the Bolivian population.
First, I’m quickly getting connected and specifying details of how I can be involved with Radio Mosoj Chaski, a Quechua-language radio station which produces materials, live radio programming, and other content for rural Quechua areas.
This past week, I’ve been helping translate for a radio expert from Canada who’s repairing handheld radios. That should turn into more consistent work with Mosoj Chaski in public relations principles, which the station has a lot of interest in.
Meanwhile, the church I’m attending and giving English classes through, Ciudad de Refugio, has shown lots of promise as a potential benefactor from PR practices.
They’ve been putting lots of great effort into social media engagement, but they’re hoping for more written content on a website and media relations strategy in particular would be highly productive for them.
Finally, the organization I’m officially here to support and my primary responsibility is still Apoyo Bolivia, through which I’m just about set to give workshops in public relations throughout the country.
The content of my class is established and ready to go; it’ll be a course of about two hours that’ll be given twice in April and twice more in May. Completing the presentation and getting highly positive feedback from Apoyo was a really positive moment this week and probably a highlight of my entire month.
That course is what the vast majority of my work here has been spent on, and seeing the result of that early effort is a great feeling.
But with all that in mind, what does it actually mean to be working on PR for these organizations, and what exactly will I be teaching the people who attend my classes?
For fellow PR practitioners or anyone else curious, here’s a more nerdy and detailed breakdown of what my plans are.
explaining my project in-depth
First, it’s important to understand that anything I do has to revolve around my target audience and my intended goals. As my workshop states, public relations has to include the following things:
strategic actions
a determined period of time to see results within
a clear, doable objective
In all three examples related to my grant, then, I’ve got to understand the culture I’m working with and predict how they’ll interact with public-facing PR tools with a high level of accuracy.
The nice thing about having established organizations to work with is that they already have all the information I need to make informed strategy decisions.
With their input, I’m putting together individualized plans for each organization in two facets: 1. their own in-house public relations to grow the organization and 2. personal, small-scale PR principles that benefit and relate directly to the people the organization interacts with.
Using Mosoj Chaski as an example, there’s potential for the station itself to grow its listenership, donation numbers, and co-interaction with like-minded local organizations, all of which I’m confident I can accomplish using PR.
Separately, though, PR tools could and should be immensely useful in the effort to make a significant and long-lasting dent in the poverty cycle in rural areas.
Mosoj Chaski works directly with rural Quechua people, delivering them audio content and handheld radios to tune into their informational and educational programming. If I can train Mosoj Chaski leadership to deliver PR principals like branding, social media management, and other practices we use in our field on a daily basis, there’s now an opportunity for these small towns to convert their resources into larger-scale operations that sustain entire communities.
In full, the options for PR tools I’m weighing with each organization here are the following:
Mass communications, including websites (with a healthy dose of SEO), public content on channels such as YouTube, and even small-scale direct advertising
Media lists and press releases, leveraging local journalists to earn unpaid advertising and build valuable media connections
Social media, including specific tools and expectations for each popular channel in Bolivia and how they can be used effectively in context of the organization’s target audience
Common channels include Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Twitter to a lesser degree
Heavy emphasis will be placed on collecting and interpreting metrics and other engagement numbers
The biggest goal with socials in most cases will be networking, even more so than growing a large following. Quality over quantity will ring especially true here, where developing long-distance connections is a key piece to sustained, consistent economic growth
From here, I’ve simply got to take feedback from the organizations I’m working with and make some final adjustments to my plans with each one. Then it’ll simply be a matter of spending the next eight months or so putting our ideas and plans into practice and retooling them around the responses and results we see.
As time goes on and things continue to materialize, I’ll be sure to update you all here!
Next time, I’ll have an entire post dedicated to quite possibly the coolest day trip I’ve ever taken in my life. Stay tuned ;)
Blessings,
Danny
