Hi, and thank you for signing up to the ultimate public relations masterclass. My name is Heather and I've been working in PR for the last 15 years, and I've been running my own agency for the last decade. My company has offices in London and Cape Town and we serve as clients around the world in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Europe and Africa. During my time working in PR, I have seen the industry change dramatically. Consumers used to get the news from newspapers, magazines and news channels published by large and reputable media organizations that were able to produce quality content, thanks to advertising revenue they generated. Now, people mostly discover their news online via social media.

In fact, a report by the Pew Research Center found that 68% of US adults get their news from social media and user generated content. Not competes with traditional media and often wins, and traditional media outfits are struggling to keep up, which means less money and fewer journalists to work with. So as a result of all of these changes in how people consume media, the whole PR industry has had to change alongside that. That can be frustrating because it means that a lot of the techniques that worked 1020 years ago, aren't nearly as effective as they were then. But it's also very exciting because it means that you have the opportunity as a PR practitioner in a digital era to push the boundaries of how we deliver public relations. So this course is going to teach you the theoretical and practical elements of doing PR in a digital world.

This course is for you if you want to launch a career in PR agency or within a company and get a solid grounding of how to do PR well. Or if you want to understand how you can do PR for your own company or If you want to get a good understanding of how PR works so that you can manage a PR team or an agency to get the best results for your business. By the time you've completed this course, you will know the fundamentals of building a PR strategy that generates leads makes your brand famous, builds the community and attracts customers using PR to increase traffic to your site, managing implementing and measuring the success of your PR plan. presenting your PR strategy to stakeholders getting buy in and securing budgets, persuading journalists and influencers to endorse your company using social media video content and traditional media to gain publicity, entering awards and maximizing your chances of winning, writing for PR generating your own media stories.

Managing a crisis or handling negative publicity, building authority and thought leadership through the media will also cover how best to get your first job interview. are and how to choose your specialism. There's a lot to cover. But I've tried to make the course as accessible as possible using lots of practical examples, real life case studies from brands that I hope you'll recognize and appreciate. If you want to be successful at PR, you're going to have to work hard, but in my opinion, nothing worth doing is ever easy. So put in the hours and you'll really reap the rewards in the end.

Before we get started, I'd like to invite you to join the ultimate piano masterclass Facebook group. This is a group of people who have taken this course. But I've also invited some of the best PR professionals I've ever worked with, to moderate and participate in the group. In this group, you'll be able to share some of your answers to some of the practical activities that we cover in the course. But you'll also be able to use it in your own PR career, share ideas, ask for support, get the group to brainstorm with you and we Really just build a solid and confidential community of PR professionals to help you further your career. I aim to respond quickly to any questions or queries in the group.

Please don't forget to rate the course as you go and provide me with feedback. I'm always open to suggestions. And I will be updating the course regularly. So I'll take your feedback on board and use it to improve upon what we've got already. We've put hundreds of hours into preparing this course. So I hope you'll appreciate the quality of the content and the resources that have been provided.

Bill Gates is often quoted as saying, if I was down to my last dollar, I'd spend it on public relations. Keep watching to find out why