WRITING AN IMPACTFUL SPEECH (2nd RUN)

Speeches are potentially one of the most powerful communication tools. However, writing a speech for your boss always appears to be a daunting task. What do I want him to say? What style suits him? What should be his message to his audience? So many questions bother you before you start writing that speech.

This course will equip you with the techniques to craft an impactful speech and deliver your key messages effectively.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS 101

Covid-19 pandemic will now be treated as endemic, a virus that we have to learn to live with. With the on-going uncertainty of Covid-19, it is especially vital for organisations to have a basic plan in place to manage crisis communications and deal with traditional and social media effectively.

 When a crisis erupts, the first few hours are of critical importance. You can define the event and frame the context in which it is judged.

This course aims to create better awareness of crisis management and communications. It will be an interactive session and participants will be engaged in challenging situations.

WRITING EFFECTIVE PRESS RELEASES

Do you find that your press releases do not interest the media?  Do they trash it immediately? Do the journalists say that there is nothing newsworthy in your press releases?  Or do they say that this information has been reported before?

Press releases still remain as one of the most effective ways to reach your organisation’s various stakeholders.  This course will help you to craft an effective press release to grab the media’s attention and communicate your intended messages to your target audience.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS IN THE NEW NORMAL

Covid-19 has changed the way we interact, with dramatic shifts to our economies and businesses. The new normal has and will continue to create its own risks and opportunities. To manage stakeholders’ expectations, new ways of communication are needed to address crises and maintain public image.This course explores best practices and significant changes in the media landscape during the pandemic and its likeability to continue in the recovery phase.

PREPARE YOUR CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

Managing communications during a crisis is vital to preventing chaos and protecting reputation. Timely and accurate communication to your critical stakeholders is important to maintain people's trust in your organisation and protect your reputation.

Crises are time-pressured events which require fast and effective response from the organisation. A crisis communications plan will help you provide an organised and efficient response, and manage the impact on your brand’s reputation.

ESSENTIAL EDITING SKILLS

Editing and proofreading are essential steps in the writing process, and crucial to PR professionals to maintain the clarity and credibility of their brand on its various platforms and channels. 

This workshop will be taught by veteran SPH editor Ms Siva Arasu, who was a senior copy editor/writer at The Straits Times. It will teach you how to remove errors, improve your work flow, and enhance your language and style.

Through case studies, analysis and hands-on exercises, you will learn how to clean up press releases, speeches, proposals and other documents to make them clearer and more effective to achieve your objectives.

​

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS IN THE ENDEMIC PHASE

Covid-19 has changed the way we interact, with dramatic shifts to our economies and businesses. The new normal has and will continue to create its own risks and opportunities. To manage stakeholders’ expectations, new ways of communication are needed to address crises and maintain public image.

This course explores best practices and significant changes in the media landscape during the pandemic and its likeability to continue in the recovery phase.

COMMUNICATING SUSTAINABILITY

It is a common trend today for both multinationals, local companies, and various organisations to use their influence to improve social and environmental well-being. This has made communicating sustainability or impact relations more critical. One clear strategy is communicating your positive change management and impact on the environment and your contributions to climate change goals. 

Sustainability communication is a pivot in business, social and environmental innovation. It is the practice of widely sharing messages, stories and ideas that result in positive impact. It strives on transparent, authentic, meaningful and resonant communications to inspire stakeholders with substantive commitment to social, environmental and ethical responsibility.

THE ROLE OF PR IN CONTENT MARKETING

Nowadays, almost anyone can be a content creator. With so much content being created online, it is even harder to stand out. Therein lies the role of PR professionals, with their wealth of connections, to reach out to the right people to get your content noticed via the right channels and audience.

 This course shows why PR and content marketing are a powerful and inevitable combination.  It teaches the importance of PR in content marketing and shares how can you bring a PR approach to your content marketing to create the greatest possible media buzz. 

WRITING EFFECTIVE PRESS RELEASES

Getting positive coverage for your product, service or clients is critical. In pitching stories on behalf of an organisation or company, there are particular issues and sensitivities. Whilst creativity remains important, there are boundaries which must also be observed.

This course session will focus on what will work and what will not work in getting your story told in the media. It will also look into how you could cut through the media clutter and achieve a higher success rate.

DATA-DRIVEN PR

Unless what you say reaches your intended audience then all your strategy will be a waste of time. The digital marketing revolution is ultimately about data and the ability to gain an unprecedented understanding of your audience. Performance tracking will show which campaigns actually work and which ones need to be changed. Audience analytics will completely change the way that PRs go about selecting media titles and channels to prioritise, and also allow the industry to craft storylines that resonate demonstrably better.

PR has the potential to be more powerful than ever. This gives public relations the opportunity to play an integral role - informing and creating strategy at the highest level. In order to do this the industry will need to completely rethink the way it fits into integrated marketing communications and how it uses data to support its decision-making.

LEADING CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

A crisis can affect any organisation and can potentially upset an organisation’s employees, customers, operations, reputation, or the international community. You need effective leadership in planning and directing your communications.  

Would “vision” alone be enough to rally the stakeholders in a crisis? What are the characteristics of a good crisis leader? What is the psychology behind effective leadership in crisis communications? 

This workshop will focus on two key areas:
a. Crisis assessment: sensitisation to organisational imperatives and larger national interests and decision-making in managing crisis communications.
b. Strategic communications: Strategies for stakeholder management, media engagement, message framing, and handling adverse publicity.

DIPLOMACY AND PROTOCOL – HOW TO HANDLE VIPS

PR practitioners and event organisers are sometimes at a loss on what to do with VIPs, including government ministers and officials, and foreign guests. The greatest fear is over little things such as where the VIP should sit, what he eats, and how they
should address the VIP.

This workshop is aimed at giving PR practitioners and event organisers an opportunity to learn about handling VIPs, special guests and foreign guests, and organising various official events. It will be an interactive session with group discussions, role plays and group exercises.

CAPITALISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Today, you need to acquire social and digital PR skills to engage and influence your online publics. You must also learn to track trending news, optimise content for search engines and social sharing, manage online communities, handle crises, track and measure your social PR efforts. 

This workshop equips you with a good understanding of digital and social media, and with the basic skills needed to create impactful content for these channels.