Strategic Communications: Taylor Wheeler

Our institutions of higher learning are OLD. The community college I work for is coming up on its 75th diamond anniversary. So yes, we are technically a Boomer organization. We are also a leader in our community. A significant percentage of the area’s healthcare workers come from our institution, as we supply many other industries and professions with employees as well. But just because the college is old does not mean its messaging has to be. As a leading organization in our community, we must be intentional in how we develop our messages and where we place them. One part of my job involves making sure that my college is reaching the largest segment of our potential students exactly where they are. But the question is...are we? Full Fabric, a company devoted to increasing colleges’ admissions and enrollment, has 10 “tried and tested” approaches to successfully marketing to the students of today (Tattersfield, n.d.). My post for this week will take those tips and apply them to my commu...

A leader with vision is extremely important in any organization, whether it is a business, a non-profit, or a volunteer organization. If a group lacks this or loses sight of its vision, it can slip into managing and checking the boxes with no focus on the future. That is what happened to a group that I am involved with in my hometown. I was recently named president of my hometown’s downtown revitalization group, which is a part of Main Street Alabama. Main Street Alabama is focused on bringing jobs, dollars, and people back to Alabama's historic communities. Economic development is at the heart of this statewide organization's efforts to revitalize downtowns and neighborhoods across the state Main Street programs are more than having great events and making downtown look better. At its core, Main Street is an economic development tool that enhances the tax base of a community, fosters entrepreneurship, builds community capacity, and creates partnerships among key groups in a co...

We start doing it as children. When Mom puts together the clues of a broken window, glass shards, and a baseball, she asks Little Johnny if he was responsible. “It wasn’t me!” is his reply. Or maybe he blames older Sister Susie for making him do it. He could try to convince Mom that a broken window was not as bad as when Timmy down the street backed his parents' car into the fire hydrant, or he could offer to superglue the window back together with the promise to practice more so his throwing aim improves. Or maybe Little Johnny plainly admits what he did and asks Mom’s forgiveness. These are not examples of a classic Leave it to Beaver lesson about responsibility—they are examples of tactics used in William Benoit’s image restoration theory. Benoit said there were five types of image restoration tactics that individuals or organizations could use whenever their reputation becomes damaged. We will look at each of those tactics, with an example of the strategy used in real-world PR ...