BANDUNG, Telkom University – Telkom University Digital Public Relations Study Program held an ICONIC Public Relations Webinar Series with the title “How to Be Iconic Public Relations”. This webinar series is divided into two sessions, where the first session is held on July 1, 2021, and the second session on July 8, 2021. The activity is conducted online through the Zoom application and is supported by PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia. In the second session, 300 academics and public relations practitioners from all over the world attended from various regions on the island of Java and outside Java.
Following the theme, this training aims to increase the ability, knowledge, and the latest information about the world of public relations to academics (lecturers, students, staff) and public relations practitioners, so that later they can become qualified, reliable, and capable public relations practitioners from company/institution.
To achieve this goal, in this second session of the Webinar Series, the Digital Public Relations study program at Telkom University presented two speakers with different sub-topics of discussion. With the sub-topic “PR’s Creativity to Build Good Engagement”, the LSPR Communication & Business Institute Lecturer, Dr. Sri Ulya Suskarwati, M.Sc. present the material in a very interesting and interactive way.
For her, the topic of Iconic Public Relations is an extremely interesting thing, because we are all going to be Public Relations. Not only a Public Relations for the company, but also yourself.
“We at our institution highly value Public Relations because Public Relations is the spearhead of the company, image, to reputation. Talking Iconic is finally talking about something we want to achieve because it is related to image and reputation. Activities and creativity related to the formation of such icons will be the end of all the activities that we will do,” said Ulya.
Iconic is a symbol or image which then represents something in the public’s mind. So to achieve the goals related to what image you want to create, which public you want to target, what is the extent of its reach, how, and when it will be done, all need to be planned.
“Planning is a must. All we need to plan before we make the creative activities that we mentioned. Because there are three criteria for productive Public Relations activities, namely Public Relations activities that have quality, quantity, and PR activities that have created.”
For Public Relations, it is not enough just to be creative, but taking advantage of big data in the current digital era is also important to pay attention to. With the sub-topic “The Role of Big Data to Support PR’s Activities”, VP Corporate Communications PT. Telkom, Pujo Pramono brought the material enthusiastically and very interactively.
Industrial revolution 4.0 disrupts various fields, including Public Relations. The emergence of various job automation or certain professions seems to be a threat in itself, but Public Relations must see it as an opportunity to innovate. And now, Public Relations must be able to see the benefits of big data and make it a tool to support the success of Public Relations activities.
“So what is the role of big data itself is as a tool or tool that we use for how we can measure effectiveness, efficiency, and then to make improvements to our next steps,” said Pujo.
In the last few years, we are concern that technology is present so dominant around us. Then, what is the role of big data for Public Relations? Pujo revealed that in this hyperconnected era big data has strong relevance to the public’s response to a company because everyone can connect and collaborate so that what the company does will become a subject of discussion or comment for the public.
“Then what is the role of big data? All things in management or management, if we can’t take measurements, if we can’t monitor everything, then we will find it difficult to manage it. Why? Because first, we need to monitor our research and how we see the results of our work. Then second, we need to know how we continue to improve on what we have done because what we do we must be able to monitor how the public reacts or responds.
At the end of the event, the chief organizer, Dr. Amalia Djuwita expressed her appreciation to the speakers, organizers, participants, and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia for supporting the ICONIC Public Relations Webinar Series activities. It is hoped that this activity can broaden horizons.
(Study Program Released)