If you’re a University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) student, you learned the importance of wearing your environmental scanner hat while learning, practicing or engaging with public relations. With that in mind, I’m sure you know what environmental scanning is, but let’s have a recap just in case.
Environmental scanning consists of checking media reports, social media discussions and getting a feel for what the public says about your organization. The process of environmental scanning analyzes information that will help identify potential opportunities and threats. In strategic planning, environmental scanning is often referred to as a part of a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.
And a cool little fact—environmental scanning is a part of excellence theory, a theory developed from a study about the best practices of public relations, researched by James E. Grunig and funded by the Foundation of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in 1985.
Without further ado, here are four ways you can conduct effective environmental scanning in your career.
- Informed Social Media Usage
The best way to build your ability to environmental scan is to operate social media as one of your central hubs to gather information. Social media platforms provide information or interesting topics related to brands, companies or influencer identities.
Here, a helpful tip is to make an alternative social media account that follows accounts covering everything applicable to your scanning. Social media truly allows you to obtain information instantly. But remember, there is much misinformation out there, so make sure to do your research and fact-checking.
- Take Notes
when environmental scanning takes place, note-taking is critical for retracing steps. Imagine you find an article you saw while using the ‘News’ app on your phone, but you can’t recall the article or anything. Aha! But your notes recall just the right info you’re looking for.
When I environmental scan, I always save articles to my reading list. The real note-taking I do here, I put the title of the article, 3-4 sentences recapping the article, and how it’ll be useful to me.
I will say this practice is beneficial to me, but everyone has their own unique note-taking style. The University of Oregon Libraries provides a library research guide on different note-taking skills, and the Tutoring and Academic Engagement Center also offers workshops.
- Discuss Your Findings While Scanning
Yes, you can do all the environmental scanning you want, but if you don’t apply or discuss what you found, it will serve no purpose in your professional life. Discussing and reporting your findings allows others to know that you’re informed and actively engaging with your content.
“A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal themselves to you, to tell you who they are or what they want.” was said by David Whyte and speaks volumes. You never know what articles you found while environmentally scanning could potentially help shift or create new conversations for a topic you’re covering. Creating or leading research helps show your effective ability to environmentally scan, you’ll be able to lead discussions or brainstorming sessions.
- Evaluating and Planning: How Environmental Scanning Impacts the Future
Your environmental scanning hat never comes off in public relations, and environmental scanning becomes crucial to evaluate and create the best plan out there. That information you have will be evidence that you gathered from an environmental scan that’ll help support whatever you’re using the information for, whether a pitch to a source or a new product you want to help show your company. The information you gather may or may not be effective at the moment, but it will be useful for sure in the future. The use of environmental scans will help public relations professionals stay informed, look at the big-picture, and always gather new information.