• Start
• Team
  • Members
  • TU Braunschweig
  • Official Team Profile
  • Attributions
• Project
  • Project Outline
  • Results
  • Engineering Principles
  • Approach
  • Potential Impact
  • Parts submitted to the registry
  • Notebook
  • Protocols
  • Acknowledgements
• Human Practices
  • Overview
  • Activities
  • Guide Part 1 - Communication strategy
  • Guide Part 2 - Implementation
  • Guide Part 3- Media Coverage Report
  • Guide Part 4 - Social Media Analysis
• Cooperations
• Safety
• Judging
• 

How to succeed in Public Relations - Communication strategy

Before any communication activities are started, it is essential to develop a communication strategy. A communication strategy is a strategic plan, which helps to pursue the objectives of public relations. As the activities should be effective on the long run, a coherent concept is needed.
The first step is the analysis of the initial situation and the development of a SWOT-Analysis where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats going along with the project and synthetic biology in general are identified. This is an example for the result of an SWOT-analysis as it has been completed for the iGEM Team Braunschweig in 2013.

SWOT analysis of the iGEM Team Braunschweig

Then the objectives as well as internal and external target groups have to be constituted. Also the messages that should be made public and the instruments for implementation have to be defined. Last but not least, a timeline where all dates and corresponding activities are recorded, has to be prepared.

Defining objectives for your communication strategy

One part of the strategy is the formulation of specific objectives that range from informational to behavioral objectives. The former are more general and try to get the attention of the people. Positional objectives point out the advantages of the project and last but not least the behavioral objectives try to change peoples’ minds and call to action.
Based on the SWOT-Analysis and the objectives the target groups can be defined. Internal and external target groups as well as opinion leaders and opinion spreaders have to be identified. Afterwards the special messages for these groups are phrased before the real implementation can start.
A detailed example of a communication strategy can be downloaded here.

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