UNS — As an annual schedule, the Communication Science Program Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held another guest lecture on Friday (1/4/2022) through the Zoom Meeting online platform.
The topic of this guest lecture was “Digital Communication Strategy” with two speakers, Riski Damastuti, S.Sos., M.A., a Faculty Member of Communication Science Universitas AMIKOM Yogyakarta and a Digital Public Relation (PR) Professional, and Tika Susilowati, S.Psi., Founder of Padmarini Event Organizer and Advertising Professional.
The Head of Communication Science Program, Sri Hastjarjo, S.Sos., Ph.D., hoped that the guest lecture could enrich students’ knowledge, especially for those going to internship or Communication Internship Program (K3). “Hopefully, this guest lecture provides additional supplementary materials because the materials will be delivered by professionals with rich experiences,” he added.
In her remark, the Vice-Dean for Academic, Research, and Student Affairs, Dra. Prahastiwi Utari, M.Si., Ph.D., highly appreciated the speakers for sharing their knowledge and experiences with the academic members attending the guest lecture. “My gratitude to both speakers for sharing their knowledge that will help students in Communication Science to have the up-to-date information, especially in digital communication strategy,” she stated.
Riski Damastuti explained that digital communication strategy is not merely transforming from non-digital to digital but also integration. Research conducted by Jim Macnamara and friends on 1,306 Communication Professionals in the Asia Pacific in 2015-2017 reported that there are three vital communication channels for PR, social media and social networks, mobile communications, and press and media relations with online newspapers or magazines. “Digital PR is often considered as managing social media, while PR is holding an increasingly strategic position in the digital era,” she explained.
She also shed light on the connection of big data availability for PR functions, in which PR is expected to be able to give meaning to extensive data available through the internet. In analyzing such enormous data, PR needs to capture the actor or people with significant influence, their sentiment, and their relations, which could be assessed using PESO model or the Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned, to reflect the company and their consumers’ relations. Another monitoring tool that is quite hyped is BRAND24 which allows PR to analyze hot topics by entering keywords.
Tika Susilowati delivered materials on digital communication strategy in advertising. She shared her experiences in building her event organizer business amid the Covid-19 pandemic. it is quite a challenge for her considering many event organizing businesses were closed during the pandemic when she decided to build hers. Tika Susilowati said that collaboration among all related stakeholders is the key to surviving the pandemic. Humas UNS
Reporter: Erliska Yuniar Purbayani
Editor: Dwi Hastuti