Bon Voyage!

With our busy lives, there is one thing most people look forward to.  Whether a student, business person, or stay at home parent, one thing we all look forward to is a vacation.  It could be as simple as a day trip to a park or aquarium or something more extravagant like a month long trip backpacking across a country, but at the end of the day, the idea of relaxing somewhere else and enjoying some down time can sometimes seem crucial to our daily survival. 

So how do we go about deciding where to go and what to do once we get there? How do we even know about these places seeing as most people vacation away from their home and normal visiting locations? The answer is Travel PR.  Some professionals in the PR business dedicate the time and energy to better the travel industry.  They do their best to find out what people are interested in doing, where they're interested in going, and other amenities to further brighten our experience.  They work with the different forms of transportation, different hotels, restaurants, and entertainment.  One company involved in this is MMG Mardiks.  When navigating through the website, it's clear their dedication to perfecting the different aspects of travel and vacation.

If I were to be someone who loves to travel and does it all the time, this would be a great idea.  Not only would I be able to learn all the in's and out's of travel but I would most likely be able to create relationships which would lead to good deals, and who doesn't like a good deal!  On the other hand though, it could be a little torturous to do some much with traveling and various vacation spots and not be able to go on each and every one of them. Overall though, I don't think travel PR is the best profession for me to be involved in.  Travel isn't something I've ever been really passionate about and because of that I feel the lack of passion would come through my work.  I also feel that overtime I would become bitter about the fact I couldn't go on every trip and that most likely isn't the best way to feel at work.

BP, Exxon, Toyota.  Sounded like I was about to name gas companies right? Well, sorry no, I decided to name companies who had a serious company crisis and had to deal with it under the scrupulous eye of the public.  As most know, BP and Exxon both have cause huge oil spills and Toyota had cars that just didn't want to stop.  In all three cases, the damage done was great enough to ruin any company.  If you look up these companies today though, you'd find all three are still in business and making plenty of money.  So how did these three companies find a way to fix their situation with as little damage to the company as possible? Well they got help from their Corporate PR team. So what exactly is corporate PR and what do they do?

Well as one could assume from the above examples, one function of a corporate PR practitioner is to provide a company with assistance during a crisis.  This means helping them decide the best way to handle the situation, how to not only get in touch with the desired publics but what is appropriate to say, and the best way to save the company's image from what seems like eminent negativity.

Most companies hope for no crisis so while things run smoothly, what does the corporations PR team do? As explained on hubpage's site, the team must aid the experts for that company by providing them with the resources needed to do research to further the company.  The PR team is also involved in finding potential investors as well as promote the company and the products or services it provides.

While I will later go into more detail on Agency PR, there are some differences between the two.  While it is possible for a corporation to hire an agency to handle their company, there are reasons companies still create their own PR team.  For starters, the corporations PR team handles only the company's issues.  They are not distracted by a job they're doing for another company.  The members have a more focused agenda and through their strength in specific areas, they are able to see the changes they caused.  These positions are harder to acquire without experience but do offer a lower level of stress and daily turnover as well as on average a higher salary and more opportunities. 

...so first focus of PR down, how am I feeling? To be honest, this sounds quite appealing to me.  I like the idea of being able to focus all my time on one client and having the consistency of one client.  The slower pace and on average lower stress level also is quite appealing seeing as I tend to stress easily.  While I do not base my life decisions off money, a higher salary would be nice, not many people would complain about that.  So overall, I would definitely consider a position at a corporation.

Here goes nothing...

When I first entered college four years ago, I was a PR major.  I quickly switched to a liberal arts undeclared major, then to a math major, then to a psychology major, and then finally entered the MAT (masters for teaching) program.  This was all before junior year began. 
Within the first two days of being back junior year, I switched back to PR. I've spent the last year playing 'catch-up' with classes and have found myself in a position where I should try and pick a focus.  Unfortunately, there are numerous options and not a lot of time, seeing as by next semester I need to do an internship and will be graduating this May. 
It is with this fear and lack of options that I've decided to dedicate my blog to the exploration of the different branches of PR.  Each entry will focus on a different type, giving me the opportunity to further explore each one and hopefully narrow down my options. 
Any comments or recommendations of branches to explore are more then welcomed!!