I NEED A WRITER WHO IS EXPERIENCED IN EVENT PLANNING OR WHO HAS A DEGREE IN STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
PLEASE IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS REACH OUT TO ME.
This is a friendly reminder that you must submit this Project as a single document. Use Word (DOCX) and ALSO fill out the spreadsheet and include links.
There are a few parts to this assignment. You will be working mainly with an event plan spreadsheet sent in a file. There are other files that will be sent with information for this assignment. PLEASE READ EVERY THING TO UNDERSTAND THE ASSIGNMENT
Week 1: Event Activity Plan
Event activity: Come up with an activity or mini-event of your choice and consider all aspects of it. Plug your notes into the New Activity tab in the event plan spreadsheet, then update the Event Timeline tab with colored rows for each element needed. Use another color than golden yellow, such as light green. Enter the component or activity to take place and also enter the start time and date and due time and date (columns A, B, and C).
Event activity evaluation plan: How will we know your activity succeeded and that we should plan for it next year? List a few ways you would assess its success. Add these to your notes in the New Activity tab.
Related Tools and Documents
SPCA Pet Day new activity brainstorming sheet
Week 2: Event Map, Contingency Planning, and Internal and External Communications
Event map: Create a map of the event, including indoor and outdoor areas and map key. Link your file or files to the Event Map tab and explain why you placed each item where you did. You can add activities and stations if you’d like. Just be sure to (a) include all of the required map items, (b) provide a key, and (c) submit a file or files that can be zoomed in and out.
Contingency prioritization list: Evaluate Pet Day contingencies to come up with your top five, and explain your choices. Add this information to the Contingency List tab and link your prep sheet as well.
Event invitations: Identify stakeholders to invite, determine how they’ll be invited, and compose an invitation to two stakeholder groups. Fill in the correct cells of the Stakeholder Correspondence tab.
Event thank-yous: Identify people to thank, determine how they’ll be thanked, and compose or plan a thank-you to two groups or individuals. Fill in the correct cells of the Stakeholder Correspondence tab.
Internal communication to staff: Write an email to SPCA staff about your particular activity to inform them and possibly recruit volunteers. Fill in the correct cells of the Stakeholder Correspondence tab.
Related Tools and Documents
SPCA Pet Day indoor and outdoor diagrams
SPCA Pet Day contingency prioritization prep sheet
Week 3: Event Social Media Kit
Social media strategy: Add four or five sub-bullet points to the social media strategy bullet in the event communications plan. Also add your Project 1 messages to the plan, along with your stakeholders and any additional publics.
Social media kit, including the following (enter these items on the Social Media Kit tab):
event hashtag;
timeline of select tactics as listed below (day of release, time of release);
three Facebook posts;
six Twitter posts, with geofencing for at least two; and
six posts for the platforms of your choice.
Related Tools and Documents
SPCA Pet Day event communications plan
SPCA Pet Day social media planner
Week 4: Traditional Media and Media Relations Products
Media rep ID: Identify at least three media representatives to contact. Enter the information on the Media Relations tab.
Media advisory: Compose an email to help your media representatives figure out which aspects of the event to cover and where (no longer than one page, double-spaced). Link to this on the Media Relations tab.
Radio PSA scriipt (30 seconds). Enter this on the PSAs tab. Create an audio recording.
TV PSA scriipt (30 or 60 seconds). Enter this on the PSAs tab. Create an audio recording.
Spokesperson ID: Identify a spokesperson who will address media reps at the event. Enter the information on the Media Relations tab.
Talking points: Write points for our media spokesperson (half a page to one page, double-spaced). Link to this on the Media Relations tab.
Speech: (two-to-three minutes, with stage directions, in 16-point double-spaced Times New Roman font). Enter this on the Speech tab.
Your choice: (a few sentences, a few pages, a sketch, a video, an audio file, an interactive piece: the sky is the limit) Write, describe, draw, or otherwise produce a traditional (non-social media) product you believe would help Pet Day achieve the SPCA’s organizational objectives. Enter or link to this on the Your Choice tab.
Event Plan Spreadsheet and Event Brief
Here are the other two documents that will help you accomplish everything in this project.
SPCA Pet Day event brief: This provides a high-level overview of the event.
SPCA Pet Day event plan spreadsheet: This is the detailed breakdown of the event timeline and everything else associated with the event. It is essentially an annex to the event communications plan. This is the file you’ll be working in and linking to throughout the project. Each step necessitates at least one entry in at least one tab. All the rows in which you need to add information or a link are highlighted in golden yellow. Note that, on the Event Timeline tab itself, you don’t need to do anything with the yellow rows; those rows are marked merely to show you how your work fits into the whole.
The event plan spreadsheet has several cells that ask you to link to another document. You can link to a Word 365 file on SharePoint, a Google doc, or anything else cloud-based that can be linked, AND/OR you can enter text to the effect of “See xxxxxxxxx document” and post that document separately in any related discussion or submission box.
A Little More Context
In your work with the SPCA, you’ve created different products for different publics. An event is another communications product designed to further the organization’s objectives, but it’s infinitely more complex than most products and has myriad other products to support it. Events often get their own annex in a communications plan. Sometimes, if the event is big enough or not part of a larger campaign, it will get its own communications plan, as in this case.
An important annex to the event plan is an event plan spreadsheet that provides a timeline as well as tabs that account for every item needed, from legal requirements to the tweet that deploys before the band starts. For instance, if you’re going to have vendors, you might need to send out a vendor prospectus, organize contracts and invoices, dedicate a team member to handling vendor needs, find a location for the vendors, time vendor setup and breakdown, put the vendor area on the event map, make sure there are waste disposal implements nearby, and send out a survey after the event so that the vendors can assess their experience and make recommendations for next year. These tasks would be laid out on the timeline as well as on other related tabs.
Luckily, you’re not arranging for every little detail in this project. You’ll plan for one event activity and use the already existing event plan spreadsheet and other resources to consider the needs for that activity. In addition, you’ll jot down some ideas for evaluating the success of your addition to the plan. Evaluation is a key part of every communications plan; in the RPIE and other models, it drives the iteration and improvement of the plan. The success of next year’s Pet Day will depend on the data you gather this year and how you make use of it. As you rise in the ranks at Parabolic, you’ll focus more and more on communications strategy and its continual refinement.
The contingency plan is an important part of event planning, helping to ensure that you have backup locations and courses of action in case of foul weather and other eventualities. Even though others will plan for the contingencies, your work in identifying them will familiarize you with the types of frameworks used by organizations to evaluate and plan for risk. Anticipating disasters and preparing for their mitigation are tasks you’ll perform on a much larger scale later on at Parabolic.
Mapping is another part of event planning. You not only have to provide maps to attendees, but also make sure the event team knows where everything is located. Mapping helps you ensure that all the components and timed elements of the event will work in concert with each other rather than conflicting and causing logistical nightmares. It also helps you strategically direct the flow of attendees and prevent crowding.
Stakeholder correspondence is another vital aspect of event planning. To ensure an enjoyable and well-attended event, you have to reach out to different groups in different ways. Planning and writing invitations, expressing thanks, and composing internal communications for Pet Day will help you round out your understanding of communications products.
Based on the social media strategies outlined in an event communications plan, a social media kit contains the products used to promote the event to your publics and accomplish the event goals and objectives via social media. For the NazarOps project, you produced one tweet; in this project, you’ll think more strategically as you plan pre- and post-event tweets along with tweets to launch during the event. You’ll get to come up with products for Facebook and other platforms. One social media tool you haven’t used yet at Parabolic is geofencing, in which different communications are conveyed to different publics depending on their physical location. You might want, for example, to tell only those at the event that a raffle is being held right now on the mainstage—after all, who else would care? You might expand your reach to the greater area in posting photos of the prizewinners, as this would show anyone within driving distance how much fun the attendees are having. Finally, you might spare publics outside the local area any news of the raffle; they would likely filter it out as noise. Too many irrelevant communications will cause your publics to stop paying attention.
In addition to all of the above, you’re conducting media relations to ensure clear and accurate coverage of Pet Day. This involves not only selecting media representatives and alerting them with an advisory, but identifying a spokesperson to meet with the media and giving that spokesperson talking points. As you work through this aspect of event planning, you’ll learn about establishing and maintaining relationships with the media, key to the success of any organization.
Finally, you’ll work on a few traditional media products. Some of these, such as the speech, will help you build on skills you’ve developed. You’ll also create less familiar products as you write for radio and television. The latter medium will require you to think visually and engage your storyboarding creativity.
The idea with all your event communications products—internal and external, social and traditional—is to accomplish your event’s goals and objectives as well as conveying to your publics and stakeholders what, when, and where the event is; why it’s important; why they want to be involved; how to best be involved; and how and why to support the organization and its mission outside the event. There is quite a lot riding on your deliverables, which must also appear natural and unforced! With each product, you’ll have to consider how to convey your messages most effectively. You obviously can’t accomplish all of the above in one tweet, nor would you want to. It helps to be mindful of the gestalt as you make your tactical decisions.
