Public Relations Pioposal foi

Louisiana State 0niveisity's

Coastal Stuuies Institute

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Couitney Ray
Caioline Simpson
Bailey uiay
Lanuon Bestei



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Table of Contents

Executive Summaiy ............................. S

Situational Analysis ............................4
Nessage .................................. 4
Auuience ..................................S
uoals anu 0bjectives ..........................S
Stiategies anu Tactics
Stiategy #1: Social Neuia anu Blogging.............6
Stiategy #2: Community 0utieach.................7
Timeline anu Buuget..........................8
Evaluation Nethous .......................... 9
Auuitional Nateiials...........................1u







S



Executive Summary

Louisianas coast consists of two million acres of wetlands, which is approximately 40
percent of the United States wetlands. The coast is a beautiful asset to Louisiana and is
one of the most valuable economic and ecological resources in the world. Unfortunately,
the coast is slowly disappearing. Every hour 100 yards of marsh are lost into the Gulf of
Mexico. This is why awareness needs to be brought to this situation. LSU Coastal
Studies Institute is not being utilized to its full potential. We want to change that.

Our plan will help pull LSU CSI off of the backburner and place it in the forefront of
peoples minds when it comes to coastal research. We will work hard to communicate
the loss of coastal wetlands while enhancing the promotion of CSIs research. Our goal
is to help establish LSU as a leading university in coastal studies. Through social media
and community outreach, we hope to have state legislators understand the importance
of directing coastal studies support and funding to Louisiana State University.

In our public relations plan, we will be using social media to mobilize as many people as
possible to take action dealing with the issues facing our coasts. These people can then
broadcast their experiences via social media. This will get citizens talking about the
issues and place an added pressure on government officials to take responsible action.
Our Facebook and Twitter post will provide articles, tips and events pertaining to coast
restoration. They are widely used and recognized by people all over the world, and
would be extremely beneficial to CSI with proper usage. Also, this will inform the public
of the devastating issues facing the coasts and would establish LSU research as a
solution to the problems.
Another part of our plan is to hold coastal community events to get the locals on board
with the efforts in order to get the attention of state legislators. By reaching out to the
community and getting more people passionate about the efforts, we think CSIs voice
will be louder. Events such as coastal chats and letter writing parties will be held to
help implement the focus throughout coastal communities.
With saving Louisianas wetlands as the primary focus of the entire campaign, we
believe that our plans to gain recognition will be a great step in the right direction. Our
proposal is heart-felt and sincere because each and every one of us in our group is
genuinely concerned about Louisiana and its future with the coast disappearing as it
currently is.



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Situation Analysis

For more than 60 years, the Coastal Studies Institute has been a tremendous
contribution to Louisiana State Universitys coastal research. The members of CSI and
more than 200 faculty at LSU are committed to the preservation of the coast because
they, as Louisiana citizens, know how important it is to Louisianas future, and our
nations infrastructure. Unfortunately, CSI has not been utilized to its utmost potential. In
creating a public relations plan to expand the publics knowledge of LSUs CSI, we will
attempt to highlight LSUs expertise in coastal studies in hopes to receive international
recognition and support. CSI is fully committed to Louisianas coast and coastal
research, and hopes to educate coastal citizens about the work being done at CSI and
to receive more financial support.


Message

The coast is an essential part of Louisiana. In addition, a Public Policy Research Lab
survey showed that 90 percent of Louisiana residents believe that LSUs coastal
involvement and research is vital to the state. Its not only a physical location, but its
also part of Louisianas culture. This area stimulates the economy while allowing
citizens to enjoy Sportsmans Paradise. With the coast vanishing at a rapid rate, it is
time for us to decide: are we going to save it, or are we going to watch it disappear? We
are here to help the Coastal Studies Institute reach its full potential in coastal research.
Our plan is to help enhance international recognition for coastal research being done in
Louisiana by reaching out through social media and establishing healthy relationship
with community leaders in coastal parishes.

The most important and obvious goal is to help the Mississippi River Delta stay
alive. About 40 percent of the worlds fish life cycles are circulated in the Mississippi
River Delta and the rapid loss of wetlands is a huge threat. CSI hopes to restore LSU as
the point of contact for coastal research and put LSU back at the top for coastal studies,
like it was about 30 years ago.

To accomplish our underlined goals, we will work to communicate research results and
expertise at CSI with the community at large to expand their impact on the Gulf Coast.
The increased recognition of CSI will, in turn, label CSI as the primary point of contact
for coastal research.




S




Audience

Our primary audience is citizens of coastal parishes and legislators. This information will
appeal to them because the facts we are using directly affect them, and they will grasp
why it is relevant. If we can get them aware of these issues, it will in turn persuade
these legislators to be concerned as well and direct the coastal studies funds to LSU as
the Coast and Environment school of choice.


Goals and Objectives

Create social media presence to gain international recognition.
Educate and update coastal citizens about issues facing the coastal environment
through community outreach.
Establish a healthy relationship with community leaders in coastal parishes.
Highlight LSU expertise in the coastal field.



















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Strategy #1: Social Media

Social media is where the people are. We know that LSU CSI is an excellent
organization that many people would love to support if we could just get the word out.
The various forms of social media will do just this. Using social media will modernize
CSI and make people aware of what is going on around the coast and what they can do
to help. It is also an excellent way to make the public aware of events that CSI will be
hosting to increase attendance.

Tactics for Social Media
Update Twitter:
o Twitter is a social media site that is very upbeat and fast paced. It can be
tricky, but when used correctly, it can be extremely affective and can
reach a large audience with very little effort. Our public relations group
has created a Twitter account for Geaux Coastal, and the account is
@geauxcoastallsu.The hash-tag is #geauxcoastal.
o Having someone at CSI events that can cover the event on Twitter would
be an excellent way to get people involved in the event that werent able to
attend. Implementing this type of public inclusion will form a great public
opinion about CSI and give people an incentive to further support the
efforts.
o An example tweet: College means experiencing new things. Try
something new and check out LSU Coast & Environment. #geauxcoastal
www.sce.lsu.edu
Create a Facebook:
o Facebook is a community all its own. This is probably the most frequented
social media site of them all, so creating a Facebook page for LSU CSI
would be extremely helpful in the efforts to raise awareness of our coastal
issues.
Maintain Blog:
o Blogging is a different type of social media. It is more of a one-on-many
type of relationship, where you post entries daily, weekly or whenever you
so choose, and people follow your blog and read your posts. In a sense,
they develop a relationship with you and they tend to feel like they know
you. It is a chance to go a little deeper with the material you post, and a
chance for you to get personal. It is a much more conversational
approach, and it in turn pulls in your audience, making them feel
emotionally connected to you.
o Our group has also started a blog for LSU CSI, and it can be found at
www.geauxcoastallsu.wordpress.com. We feel that this is an excellent
way to let the public get a closer look at what LSU CSI is up to, and
include them to a whole new level.
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Strategy #2: Community Outreach

Tactics
Coastal Chats:
o A coastal chat would include members from LSU Research and LSU CSI
attending any sort of community leader meeting in a coastal parish and
taking a minute to tell them about the importance of CSI and giving them a
chance to ask questions
o It would be beneficial to be extremely hospitable, bringing food and
brochures and goodie-bags as a type of thank you tokens for the
community allowing us to hold the event at their meeting. It is an excellent
idea to host the coastal chat at an event that is already taking place
because it wouldnt be an inconvenience to any of the attendees.
o Coastal chats would be a superb attempt to reach legislators to try and
persuade them to direct coastal research funds to LSU. We would do so
by starting at the roots and getting local government officials and leaders
on board with our efforts and have them become passionate about it as
well. They would in turn do what they can to insure that the legislature is
informed of why LSU should receive the funds.

Letter Writing Parties:
o Once we have gained some support from citizens of coastal parishes and
local officials and leaders, it would be beneficial to hold a letter writing
party in several communities. Here, we would encourage everyone to
come out and collectively write letters to the legislators explaining to them
the concerns of the citizens about the coast and how it would be beneficial
to direct funds to LSU as the nations leading coastal studies university.












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Timeline

Though our group will only technically be collaborating with CSI until May 2013, the
social media that we are implementing to make CSI more widely recognized will be able
to be implemented as long as long as there is someone to maintain. There is no
timeline on the usage of social media. We hope that our plan will continue for
evaluation winter of 2013.


Budget Calculations

Costs Quantity Price Total
Hourly wages for PR
group
25 hours a week
8 weeks
$75 per hour for entire
group
$15,000
Catering for coastal
chats
2 chats $200 per event $400

Catering for letter
writing parties
2 letter writing parties $200 per event $400
Letterhead paper 2 parties $60 each party, 100
letters per part
$120
Stamps for letters 2-100 counts $46 per 100 count $92
Total $16,012


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Evaluation Method

There are a variety of ways to evaluate the success of the plan. In order to evaluate the
progress of Facebook and Twitter, the evaluation will be determined by the engagement
of our audience. The number of retweets, comments, shares, and positive reviews are
the real indicators for the progress. The number of followers and likes will not be
evaluated, as the plan will focus on a larger percentage of interacting audience
members rather than a larger number of fans. The ROI of Facebook and Twitter are not
necessarily about dollar and cents but about the traffic of viewers on the site. Google
analytics will be used to evaluate the number of visits to the blog and Google searches
to the social media pages.

At the beginning of each coastal chat, short surveys will be passed out to the attendees
allowing them to evaluate the impact that the coastal chat has made. The attendees will
also be able to provide feedback and suggested advice on how to improve our coastal
chats.

Finally, the letter writing parties will be evaluated by calculating the difference in the
amount of letters that are sent to legislators from the first party to the next.























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Additional Materials

Social Media Facts:
1 billion people are on Facebook making it the 3
rd
largest country in the world.
40 percent of people socialize more on online than they do face-to-face.
New Yorkers received tweets about an east coast earthquake 30 seconds before
they felt it.
340 million tweets are sent each and every day.
300 million pictures are uploaded to Facebook every day via Instagram.
Each day 20 percent of Google searches have never been searched before.
People no longer have to search for products, the products search for the people.
In 10 years over 40 percent of the Fortune 500 will no longer be here.
93 percent of marketers use social media for business.
There are 152,000,000 blogs on the Internet.
2/3 of marketers say their company blog is critical or important to their
business.
What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook.
Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry have more Twitter followers than the
entire populations of Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, United
Kingdom, Egypt.


22 blogging facts that will blow your mind. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.myprconnection.com
Bennett, S. (2013, January 04). 100 amazing social media statistics, facts and figures. Retrieved
from www.mediabistro.com
Qualman, E. (2013, January 01). Social media video 2013. Retrieved from
www.socialnomics.com