Interviewed by: Elina Ketikidi
Tatjana Loparksi studied at the St. Cyril and Methodius University in Interdisciplinary Journalism and she did her post-graduate studies at the Department of International Law and Politics at the faculty of Law. Currently Tatjana is in the final stage of acquiring her Master's degree in Marketing Advertising and Public Relations from The University of Sheffield International Faculty, City College. For 13 years she was working as a journalist for various national television channels in Skopje, as well as radio stations, daily newspapers and magazines. She served as the Spokeswoman to the President of the country (2005 – 2006 ). Tatjana has also a great experience in the field of Public Relations. She was a PR Manager at Image PR Agency, a Managing Partner of Omega PR Agency and now she is the executive director of her own PR company "Element PR & Corporate Communications. In early December Tatjana delivered an interesting seminar to the postgraduate students in Thessaloniki on PR Evaluation and Metrics. PART II
What do you wish you should have known before starting your career in PR?
Things are changing pretty fast in this profession. I did not have the education of PR, having in mind that I have finished journalism and also I had my postgraduate studies in International Law and Politics. I wish I would have the education that you are having now. At that period in my country the PR just started to evolve into a profession, so I was learning it while working it. I had a great challenge working as a Spokeswoman of the President of the country and I learnt a lot while working in such a position. I was stuck everyday with tones of papers that I had to read, with hundreds of questions that had to be answered and I was working for the State Institutions were mistakes are not allowed. But I learn a lot !
We are coming through the era of social media and digitalization. How does technology affect your daily work and how can you use social media to reach and impress traditional media?
Several years ago we had some big arguments among colleges in my country about the use of social media. Great part of them thought it is a waste of time and something for fun. I was not one of them. Seeing how internet changes the flow of information, it was more than obvious that social media will make a revolution of communication. There are now social media that affects public opinion and make even crisis for some companies when they have some issue on social media. The future of this profession is in content creation, that will be distributed via Internet and some of traditional media. That is the natural way of creation of new media. See the history of communication and you will see the development. People started to communicate with signs and now we are almost a global village because we can easily communicate with the other part of the world without any problem because of technology.
Have you ever guided any executive decisions during a communications crisis? How do you know when to sound the alarm of a major communications crisis vs. less severe issue?
In crisis communication you have one first rule that you have to implement and that is centralization of communication channels. When crisis appears there is only one person that is giving information in the public. If you do not control that, there will created more problems. So make sure that you will have all the information needed and also make a plan for communication. You will know when it is high alarm crisis; you will be first news at all media. You will know, believe me !
What things do you consider when creating a PR plan to avoid creating a PR fail moment?
I like this phrase - PR fail moment. Do not think that every plan is a perfect one. It is changing material. When you will do something you will have to do also modification, so that is how you are avoiding PR fail moment.
From 2005 until 2006 you were the Spokeswoman to the President. Which are the main differences being President's Spokeswoman from just being a PR manager in a company or organization?
The main things connecting both are that politics and business is the influence that they have on each other. When there is political misbalance and problems in the country it affects economy and in extend affects political situation in the country. You cannot work in PR if you are not into public affairs and dealing with problematic issues of your clients. That is why the essence of this job is to communicate, to build a network of people whom you trust and work with and of course to know your job. When you are a Spokeswoman for an institution such as the President's Office you are dedicated to fulfilling the duties of the office that you are working for, and that is mainly media relations, but when it comes to PR manager of the organization you are dealing with all audiences including media. Therefore, being a PR manager allows you to practice in full the PR profession.
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