Adaptive Public Relations Key to PR Practitioners' Success

Entering the workforce, theoretical knowledge alone is deemed insufficient to prepare students to dive into it. Hence, students are considered to need hands-on experience and real-world insights from the job market. This is one of the backgrounds for organizing a webinar titled "Seeing the Importance Role of Public Relations from Professionals Perspective," held by the HM Public Relations of UPN "Veteran" Yogyakarta in collaboration with IKAKOM UPN "Veteran" Yogyakarta on Wednesday (2/3/2022).

"Being a Public Relations (PR) professional must be able to adapt, especially in this new normal era. They must be able to transition from manual to digital in order to maintain their existence," said the Head of Public Relations at Bhayangkara University and Secretary of Surabaya Public Relations Association, Fitria Widiyani Roosinda, in starting the session.

Furthermore, Tya explained the importance of the PR role, stating various criteria that should be met. Among them, to be a PR professional, one must be competent, understand digital and global trends, have integrity, be humble, faster, and capable of collaboration. She then added, "However, this is just a formula. In practice, it will depend on how we apply it in our daily lives as PR professionals," she added.

Tya concluded her presentation by reminding participants that to be a good PR professional, one must "Trust, but verify." "To be a good PR professional, we must believe but still seek and verify. Because blind mistakes can be exploited," she concluded.

After the completion of the first session's presentation, the second session's presentation was delivered by Maria Perwitasari, a Marketing Communication professional from Royal Ambarukmo. Not only explaining digital PR, Maria also provided explanations about digital marketing and the differences between the two.

"Digital marketing is a marketing process in the digital space that focuses more on actions expected to be taken by consumers. For example, EDM, search marketing, or SEO," said Maria. "Meanwhile, digital PR functions as relationship management and is more focused on social media channels. Where social media falls under the PR function and responsibility. This is considering the free flow of information on social media nowadays," she continued, closing her presentation.

It is worth noting that this webinar was held in conjunction with the peak event of the National Deliberation of IKAKOM UPN "Veteran" Yogyakarta. Finally, the committee hopes that this webinar will be beneficial for all participants. Not only gaining new knowledge and insights but also providing a new perspective on the PR world from a professional standpoint.

Another hope was expressed by Bima Hindra, one of the committee members of the webinar. "In addition, because this event is in collaboration with IKAKOM and seeing the results of the event and the high enthusiasm of the participants, hopefully, in the future, HM Public Relations can collaborate again and create other events that are also beneficial" he concluded.