Audiences Comm final exam

Define audience

Education, socioeconomic, demographics, consumption patterns, lifestyles, behavioral segmentation, communication channel segmentation

Principal Publics

media, internal employees/members, home community, national state and local governments, consumers

Unique Publics

Publicly-owned orgs: Shareholders
• Nonprofits: Donors
• Schools: Parents
• Dealers and Suppliers
Revised January 2025

Targeting Effectively

Media
• Mass and specialized
• Internal publics
• Management and non-management
• Home community
• Community media, community leaders and
community organizations
Government
• Federal, state, county, and city levels
• Consumer publics
• Company employees, customers, activist consumer
groups, consumer publications, community media
and community leaders
Revised January 2025

Prioritizing

Prioritizing
• Determine how important each of the publics
you have listed is to the organization?
• Degree of influence, prestige, power, or need
• Level of involvement with the organization by the
public
Revised January 2025

Researching Target Publics

Demographics
• Media habits
• Levels of media use
Revised January 2025

Methods of Research

Methods of Research
• Nonquantitative
• Quantitative
Revised January 2025

Nonquantitative Research

Client records:
• Business reports, statistics, financial reports past
public relations records, and speeches by
executives
• Newsletters, news releases, memorandums,
pamphlets, and brochures

Published Materials
• News articles from mass media and trade
publications
• Published surveys or polls
• Government documents, directories
• Published trade association data

Interviews with key members of targeted
publics
• Civic leaders, elected officials, business leaders,
religious leaders, educators, influential editors, and
reporters

Feedback from customers
• Customer response via telephone, mail or face-to-
face conversations

On-line Databases
• Nexis
• DataTimes
• Dialog
• Dow Jones
News/Retrieval
• CompuServe
• NewsNet

Focus Groups
• 8-12 people
• Representative of
audience you want to
reach
• Requires a
moderator skilled in
interviewing
• Normally videotaped

Quantitative Research

Sample Surveys
• Most frequently used
• Mail
• Telephone
• In Person

Controlled Experiments
• Uses two groups of subjects, randomly selected
• One group exposed to communication media
• Both groups tested before/after communication
exposure

Content Analysis
• Used to analyze themes or trends in message
content of selected media
• Used to learn how the media treat clients
• Public image as reflected in the media
• Negative or positive coverage
Revised January 2025

Key Influencers

nfluencers
• Builds an audience over time
• Is trusted
• Viewed as an authority on a certain subject
• Shares content that persuades their audiences to
take action
• Establishes a brand voice
• Sports athletes
• Pop stars
• Media professionals

Influencer Platforms

Web sites
• Blogs
• Newsletters
• Podcasts
• Social media presence
• Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok,
YouTube, etc.

Types of Influencers

Celebrity
• Mega: prominent on social media
• Micro: smaller audiences, focuses on
particulate interests
• Nano: even smaller audiences, lacks fame
• Pico: Smallest audiences, highly passionate
about engaging their communities
Revised January 2025

Creators

• Creates original content
• Story-telling is central to their creativity
• Focuses on producing content for a specific
platform
• Influencers focus on specific areas of expertise
Revised January 2025

Audiences Segmentation

Addressing education in the community
• Public segmentation would include
• Parents
• Teachers
• Administrators
• Future employers
• Addressing zoning regulations within that
community
Revised January 2025

Key Categories for Audience

Segmentation
• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Behavioral segmentation
• Communication channel segmentation
Revised January 2025

Grunig’s Situational Theory of
Publics

• Problem recognition
• Constraint recognition
• Level of involvement
Revised January 2025