Personal Assignment: Creating Wordpress Website

I’ve decided to use WordPress to build my website. The template I chose is Radcliffe 2, in my opinion it’s the easier one considering I don’t have any design experience or knowledge about how to make a website whatsoever. It may be the template that will keep me from putting too much information and keep it simple, instead of cluttering the pages with photos and unnecessary stuff. Personally, this is a complicated assignment because I am not the creative type and would prefer to stay away from creating a website myself, even an easy and simple one. However, the communication part, like creating a mission statement and choosing what to write in each of the sections of the website, is not as hard to me and I find it very interesting.

The external links that I believe would be helpful to my target audience, and also something that could be informative about the company, are the ones that will take them to the websites of the main leather industry fairs in Asia, where my target audience is located. My company, in order to be a leader in its industry, must be an exhibitor in all of these fairs, such as APLF in Hong Kong, ACLE in Shanghai and IFLE in Vietnam.

The idea I have for the news release is to inform the public about the company’s new guideline of only working with LWG (Leather Working Group) certified tanneries. The LWG is a group of stakeholders that controls the leather manufacturing industry’s effects on the environment. The organizations that can be LWG certified are from retailers of leather goods to chemical suppliers and tanneries. The promotion of better and sustainable practices in the industry is getting more and more important every day, and many of the major leather product manufacturers are demanding the LWG certification from their suppliers. By assuring that all of our suppliers are LWG certified and therefore being able to also become an LWG member too (after going through an audition as well), the organization will show to its stakeholders that they care about their social and environmental responsibility, and consequently are involved in the communities they are a part of. As said in the previous discussion board, the company is an international trader of hides, skins and leather, and it’s a very small market, so it may not be newsworthy to some big news networks, for example. However, this wouldn’t be the kind of attention the company would be looking for anyway, so if such news release is newsworthy to the few specialized sources of information in the industry, which I believe it is considering, again, the importance of LWG certification nowadays, then the news release will have achieved its goal. To make sure it adheres to a traditional news release format, I’ll use all, or as many as possible, tips and components of the News Release Slides, such as using a letterhead, quote, “###”, etc.

I am going to create an infographic because I believe it is more useful than a podcast or a video in this case. I know this industry very well because I worked in it for 5 years, so I also know that these types of media are not used much, including the infographic. However, I think that with the infographic I could offer some kind of relevant information to potential customers and also existing ones. The first idea is do a data visualization infographic that would contain information about the hides and skins exports in some of the countries the company has suppliers in, for example some statistics like FOB value and destinations. The second idea would be to create a tutorial infographic with a basic “how to” import hides and skins legally in China, Taiwan and Vietnam. The last idea is a map infographic with general information about the industry in the whole world. In order to complete the infographic, I need good research and language skills to find the information from reliable sources, such as government websites of several countries, but also my already acquired knowledge from years working in the industry. I have to learn how to use one of the free infographic makers available online as well.