Public relations

PUBLIC RELATIONS

What is Public relations?

• There has always been confusion about whether public relations include advertising, marketing and so on.

• Two decades ago, marketing and PR were two vastly different functions and PR was an unimportant part of any business.

• But in the past 20 years, the meaning and importance of PR in a company has reached a position where PR serves as the face of the company as the name ‘Public Relations’ suggest. It has become a vital factor for the success of any company, professional, celebrity or brand.

• The concept of Public Relations is about maintaining and enhancing reputation.

• The meaning of Public Relations is different for different people/ publics.

• Public Relations is often defined with the help of its tools and techniques such as publicity in the newspaper, or publicity that attracts sales of a company or in case of government it is about creating awareness and dispersal of information.

• The effort by an organization of establishing and maintaining goodwill with its various publics (customers, employees, investors, suppliers, government, opinion leaders, etc.) is known as public relations.

• M. Cutlip, Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom provide another widely taught definition stating, “Public Relation is the management function that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the various publics on whom its success or failure depends.”

In order to clearly understand what public relations mean this definition can be divided into four parts:

• First, it emphasizes on public relations as a ‘management function’– As a management function it involves planning about what is to be done and how it is to be done in order to achieve the desired outcome.

• Further, the terms ‘identifies, establishes, and maintains’ refer to the immense research and sustained efforts.

• Thirdly, it emphasizes on ‘mutually beneficial relationships’. Mutually beneficial relationship refers to the two-way process that helps the organization to take steps in the interests of both related publics and itself.

• Lastly, it emphasizes that its success or failure depends largely on its various publics.

• The word publics refers to specific target audiences within the general public. Different publics have different interests in the same organization. Therefore, every kind of public should be treated in a distinct manner and must be reached and communicated through a unique public relations initiative.

• Publics for an organization could be customers, employees, investors, media, shareholders, business partners, etc.

• For example, for an NGO, its donors, members, potential supporters and volunteers could be publics. Also, publics of newspapers could be its readers, advertisers, employees, general public, government officials and shareholders.

• Public Relations as a function can be most efficient only when it is done with proper planning by the PR professionals of the organization.

• As soon as a PR problem or opportunity is defined, the PR department should start planning carefully so that strategic decisions can be taken about what is to be done and how it is to be done in order to make something happen or prevent it from happening, as in the best interest of the organization.

• Preparing a plan does not guarantee success, but it enhances the probability of success.

• Thus, proper planning of PR function is important and PR as a function cannot be left to chance.

Public Relations is neither Advertising, Publicity, Propaganda nor Lobbying.

• Advertising is one way communication by an organization with an objective to disseminate information about a product, service or an idea through paid media. For example, getting an advertisement published in the local newspaper is advertisement as the company is paying for it. But, if a journalist thinks that the activities of a company or product is worth an article and writes about it, this would be public relations as it is free.

• Publicity is a deliberate attempt to gain public attention towards a particular product or activity. It is generally done for a short term and is not always under the control of the organization.

• Propaganda is a deliberate and systematic attempt to influence attitudes, opinions and actions of the target audience. Propaganda usually has a negative connotation attached with it.

• Lobbying is building and maintaining relations with legislators and government officials to influence legislation and regulation.

Public Relation is a much wider term. Public Relations as a function is the process of making

policies and plans concerning the various publics, deciding upon the actions to be taken to fulfill the plans made and communicate to the public about

these plans, so as to enable a two-way communication between the organization and its publics. Emphasis is on the creation of favorable

public opinion.

A public is a group of people who have a common interest or common values in a particular situation. When the interests and values of particular publics come into contact with the interests and values of particular organizations, relationships are born. Organizations form relationships with publics because those publics have resources that those organizations need to ful-fill their values-driven goals. Publics that can be affected by the actions of an organization are called "stakeholders."Public relations practitioners often categorize publics in order to understand them better. Traditional categories of publics include

• traditional and non-traditional publics• latent, aware, and active publics• intervening publics• primary and secondary publics• internal and external publics• domestic and international publics

Traditional Publics in public relations include employees, the news media, investors, governments, customers/consumers, multicultural community groups, constituents/voters, and businesses.

No matter how an organization classifies the publics essential to its success, the organization should answer several questions regarding each public. Among the most important are:

• What is the public's stake, or values, in its relationship with us?• What is the public's opinion of the issue in question?

Answering these and other important questions eases the challenge of building relationships with publics essential to an organization's success.

Mistakes in PR in the PAST

Domino’s Pizza Viral Video

“In a video on YouTube, two Domino’s Pizza employees taped themselves spitting in a customer’s pizza. This went viral, and customers would not dare use them. While the company fired those employees, the CEO had to make a public apology in a video and put up a Times Square NYC billboard to display customer comments (good or bad) uncensored, and it showed they ended up staying true to their brand.”

Know Your Grammar Rules!

“If people are analyzing your word usage, they are not thinking about your message. Nobody is immune; when Steve Jobs once called an iPod the “funnest” ever, the following buzz was not on the features of the new product, but on the correct usage of “fun” in the English language.”

Toyota’s Camry Effect Campaign

During the Superbowl, Toyota planned a major Twitter campaign meant to promote the Camry. Creating a number of Twitter accounts labeled CamryEffect1 through CamryEffect9, Toyota intended to engage users by directly tweeting them. However, this had the opposite effect: users accused Toyota of bombarding and spamming them with unsolicited messages. Though Toyota quickly suspended the accounts, this campaign still resonates as an example of a failed, large-scale endeavor.

The top 10 PR Crises of 2011 were faced by companies like Blackberry, Sony, HP, Dow

Chemical and Tepco.

http://www.holmesreport.com/featurestories-info/11377/The-Top-10-Crises-Of-2011.aspx

Bharti Walmart to Adopt 50 Government Schools In India