Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ever-changing and advancing world, the public relations (PR) industry has undergone changes in order to effectively and adequately serve the public. Hofstra’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) addressed how all these changes fit with the traditional aspects of PR to create the “PR puzzle” in their annual spring conference on Saturday, April 10.
PRSSA holds this event every spring to invite different public relations professionals to speak to Hofstra students. “We want to provide an opportunity for students to not only be able to network with different professionals but, it’s also an educational experience where people can learn more about the different industries they want to be a part of,” said Victoria Wetmore, a senior public relations major and vice president of PRSSA.
This year’s panel included multiple Hofstra graduates, including Shavonne Williams, vice president and director of media relations at NYC Economic Development, Danielle Tana, talent publicity assistant at Narrative PR and the keynote speaker: Sherry Goldman, founder and president of Goldman Communications Group.
“My favorite part [of the conference], as a faculty advisor, was seeing some of my former students now in positions in the industry and talking to students as professionals,” said Jefferey Morosoff, chair of the department of journalism, media studies and public relations at Hofstra.
The conference kicked off with Goldman speaking about how the public relations industry has grown significantly since she entered the field. “When I graduated from Hofstra, there was not a PR major,” she said, “and there certainly wasn’t a Herbert school. There were just classes in the basement of Memorial Hall.”
Goldman talked about the importance of public relations in today’s society and how it is growing technologically to reach more people and become more accessible. “We can put our content where you are instead of finding ways to draw you where we are,” she said.
Overall, Goldman emphasized how far PR has come since she graduated college and how it will continue to change. “Today, [public relations] is so much more expansive, diverse, interesting and ever changing,” she said.
The entire conference consisted of four different panels, covering all the aspects of public relations that create the PR puzzle: PR tools, crisis and reputation, entertainment and diversity.
The first panel talked about the importance of public relations in any society and how traditional methods, in unison with new PR tools, will create an encompassing and effective message that can reach audiences of all backgrounds.
“I think you’re going to be looking at an industry that had once been white men,” said speaker Shelley Spector, president and co-founder of Spector and Associates, “to having a highly multiracial, multinational, multigender industry and that’s fantastic because that truly represents our public today.”
The second panel discussed how crisis and reputation management has become increasingly important, as the nation battled many controversial topics in the past year.
“Companies are being asked more and more to take a stand on things that you might never have taken a stand on before,” said speaker Ken Young, assistant vice president of marketing and public relations at Molloy College and adjunct professor at Hofstra, “and now that people are more comfortable protesting and marching in the streets on different issues, they are turning to the place that they work or the companies in their area … and they are demanding to know how they feel about the issue.”
The third panel focused on entertainment public relations and how challenging it can be to be creative and effective. “Challenging yourself to think outside of the box is going to be truly important,” said speaker Yejide Collman, publicity and marketing coordinator at ARRAY.
“It’s a demanding side of the industry,” Morosoff said, “but if you love it, then it’s worth it.”
The final panel discussed the importance of diversity and inclusion within the public relations industry.
“As public relations professionals, we really need to make sure we’re catering to all audiences,” Williams said. “Everyone has the right to hear about messages and stories, so we need to make sure that we’re reaching out to those media outlets and reporters.”
They also emphasized the importance of including those values internally, within a company’s staff, by hiring people of different backgrounds. “It shouldn’t just be observational, it should be inclusionary,” Morosoff said. “They should have people on their staff who look like the public; who look like America.”
Overall, the spring 2021 PRSSA conference emphasized the importance of change and how the public relations industry is evolving in a way that will benefit all audiences, companies and consumers.
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” said panelist Huilian Ma Anderson, managing director at Moxie Communications Group. “It starts with you.”
