Be Boundless: Three key takeaways from a successful campaign

Be Boundless. This is the tagline of a communications campaign recently developed by Augusta University, a public higher education institution in Georgia. Their successful campaign focused on increasing awareness and celebrating the opportunities that their campus and community offer.

As a PR student, I am continuously trying to learn as much as I can about different communication plans developed by organizations worldwide. Although the campaign developed by Augusta University incorporates numerous elements, my three key takeaways from their work are the following: (1) creating campaign toolkits can help organize and structure ideas, (2) incorporating interactive viewbooks can boost engagement, and (3) creating high-quality blog post content is very important. In the following paragraphs, I want to go over and explain each of these takeaways.

Creating a PR campaign can be a great experience. However, it can also become troubling when you don’t feel like you have the right equipment or ideas. A great way to organize and structure a campaign is by creating a toolkit that will help your team throughout the whole campaign process.

Augusta University created a ‘Be Boundless’ toolkit that helped them implement their creative ideas. A toolkit can include photos taken for the campaign, PowerPoint templates, and videos. Infographics, campaign guides, campaign messages, and messages are additional documents that can also be a part of the toolkit. Creating a toolkit during a campaign is extremely beneficial as it stores all of the ideas and documents in one spot. Once a toolkit is created, it can also be used for future campaigns developed by a team.

Another element that can help PR students enhance their campaigns or endeavors are interactive viewbooks or videos. Augusta University created an interactive video that touched on student admissions, life after college, how to get involved in the community, and programs offered by the university. An interactive video can help a campaign obtain information and feedback about how well their campaign is doing.

You can create interactive viewbooks and videos by using different software, such as Edpuzzle and Rapt. These types of software help you easily create, embed, and analyze interactive videos. They also have features such as editing, composing, and using simple drag-and-drop actions to add clickable elements and branches to your videos.

Lastly, it is tough to succeed in a campaign that incorporates content marketing without creating high-quality blog posts. Writing compelling blog posts is not easy. However, it can be a potent tool if it is well-written and delivers useful content. Augusta University incorporated social media into their campaign by including target-specific blogs and media posts. Social media allows real-time messaging and amplifies your messages, which makes campaigns stronger and more powerful.

Creating a PR campaign can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Having the right tools and ideas can make a huge difference. Therefore, learning from others and expanding our knowledge can significantly impact our likelihood of developing successful programs and campaigns.

By Alexa Gutierrez

Alexa is a senior at San Diego State University majoring in public relations. Currently, she is working with the YMCA, aiding with their expanded learning programs. Post graduation, she hopes to be a sports publicist or social media manager.