Today I hunted for information on best practices for media relations during a university rebranding. What I observed was that it seems VT and the other institutions seem less concerned with talking to outside parties about their rebrand and more concerned with helping internal stakeholders conform to the brand. Files, color palettes, and other helpful items to keep things standardized abounded on the sites I examined. I haven’t given my recommendation to Michelle yet, but I’m thinking that IUP, if we’re following the example of other players in our space, won’t address the rebrand in our press releases. However, perhaps this is an area where we can innovate and stand out from the rest.
Michelle and Stephanie invited me to a meeting about a presentation on our department’s goals (I think for the next year). I mostly listened and asked questions. I did contribute that social media can be a useful tool to generate earned media. Michelle and Stephanie agreed. IUP does have a social media “guru” outside of our department, but I hope that we’ll coordinate closely with them to leverage platforms like President Driscoll’s Twitter account to promote the President as a thought leader on national issues. That’s a priority for our department. Today I learned that our department isn’t tasked with marketing per se but rather with media relations. Moving forward I need to take stock of my hours to be sure I’m on pace to finish this internship on time.