Elements of a Public Relations Plan (from Jon)
I was reading the article "Elements of a Public Relations Plan," and this
particular section on explaining why media coverage is important on page 3
caught my attention. "Paid advertising increases name recognition; media
relations increases credibility. When people read a story about the
excellence of your organization in a newspaper or see a story praising
your company on television, they are much more likely to have a favorable
opinion of your organization."
The contents of this entire page reminded me of one of the first few
discussions we had in class on week 1 or 2, that centered trying to define
what exactly PR is and what it does.
The fact that this page and the previously mentioned quote basically boils
the need for PR down to a tactic promoting credibility immediately made me
disagree with the statement, but the more I thought about it, I tended to
agree with the assessment that the basic premise for all PR work is to
enhance the credibile perception of a client or an orgainization within
certain groups.
This is certainly not a new revelation, and is one which we have discussed
either prominently or in passing on several occasions, but the simplicity
with which this article stated it struck me in an odd way. As someone who
has been working in the field for a couple years, I have some mixed
emotions on agreeing with this basic nuts and bolts explanation. I hate
the idea that my job and the entire PR industry can be summed up in such a
simple way, but maybe it can.
When stated in such a way, the goal of creating or furthering credibiliity
seems like an incredibly superficial goal, and sort of plays up the image
of PR practitioners as spin-doctors of questionable legitimacy. On the
other hand, however, when I really thought about it, I found myself
agreeing with this simplistic description of PR work in general.
I would like to think that PR delves a little more into the realm of
presenting people with information that is not necessarily aimed entirely
at image enhancement, but when people hire a PR agency, increased
credibility is what they want to see in return.
I will sum this post up with this thought ... PR is an area that
encompasses a lot of work, tactics and ideas beyond the simple desire to
increase credibility and news coverage, but if you had to sum it up in one
simple thought, I suppose that the statement of PR's main purpose as work
to enhance the credibility of a particular entity is a pretty fair one to
make.
particular section on explaining why media coverage is important on page 3
caught my attention. "Paid advertising increases name recognition; media
relations increases credibility. When people read a story about the
excellence of your organization in a newspaper or see a story praising
your company on television, they are much more likely to have a favorable
opinion of your organization."
The contents of this entire page reminded me of one of the first few
discussions we had in class on week 1 or 2, that centered trying to define
what exactly PR is and what it does.
The fact that this page and the previously mentioned quote basically boils
the need for PR down to a tactic promoting credibility immediately made me
disagree with the statement, but the more I thought about it, I tended to
agree with the assessment that the basic premise for all PR work is to
enhance the credibile perception of a client or an orgainization within
certain groups.
This is certainly not a new revelation, and is one which we have discussed
either prominently or in passing on several occasions, but the simplicity
with which this article stated it struck me in an odd way. As someone who
has been working in the field for a couple years, I have some mixed
emotions on agreeing with this basic nuts and bolts explanation. I hate
the idea that my job and the entire PR industry can be summed up in such a
simple way, but maybe it can.
When stated in such a way, the goal of creating or furthering credibiliity
seems like an incredibly superficial goal, and sort of plays up the image
of PR practitioners as spin-doctors of questionable legitimacy. On the
other hand, however, when I really thought about it, I found myself
agreeing with this simplistic description of PR work in general.
I would like to think that PR delves a little more into the realm of
presenting people with information that is not necessarily aimed entirely
at image enhancement, but when people hire a PR agency, increased
credibility is what they want to see in return.
I will sum this post up with this thought ... PR is an area that
encompasses a lot of work, tactics and ideas beyond the simple desire to
increase credibility and news coverage, but if you had to sum it up in one
simple thought, I suppose that the statement of PR's main purpose as work
to enhance the credibility of a particular entity is a pretty fair one to
make.
posted by Richard @ 8:40 PM
3 Comments:
At 10:46 PM, March 10, 2008,
Emily Burnett said…
I agree that the sentence summarizing public relations is very brief, but I think it makes a good point in comparing public relations to paid advertising. Public relations isn’t just paying a lot of money to get your name heard, it’s having a cause that is worth covering. The huge companies like Budweiser and Coke have enough money to pay for commercials during the Super Bowl. The commercials cost a fortune because it is without a doubt a way to increase brand recognition since it’s the most popular TV event of the year! This makes the companies credible in that you know they must be successful to have that much money in their advertising budget, but it doesn’t say much else. Public relations is much more than that. It’s establishing a positive reputation and relationship with the public, and through media coverage you can build credibility. If a TV or radio station chooses to air your story, it reflects highly your organization and its cause (and your public relations tactics).
The overview of the article says that public relations delivers the most bang for your buck compared to other marketing communication tools. After reading through all the tactics, it is amazing how many free and very inexpensive tactics there are for organizations! One that stands out to me is the internet marketing (partly because we’ve been talking about the web in class and partly because my group’s paper is about social networks). Creating and maintaining a website is very inexpensive yet very effective. As technology advances, more of these types of avenues are available. Organizations can use blogs, online video sites such as You Tube, online networking sites such as Myspace, etc for almost no cost at all. However, I think it’s important to remember that although these web-based tools and other tactics mentioned in the article are free, it still takes time, resources, creativity, and dedication to create and maintain. A staff member or team must be willing and able to take the time to fully utilize these tactics and have the knowledge to do so successfully!
Overall, I think this article came at a good time- half way through the semester it was nice to have a brief refresher about the basics of public relations and a summary of available tools.
At 12:19 AM, March 11, 2008,
Jon Pharr said…
I also really enjoyed reading through this article and wanted to reinforce the importance of the internet and capitalizing on resources that are rather inexpensive. The organization I am working with has experienced a large increase in donations since implanting a donation page on their website. It provides an easy way to donate with relatively no work from the organization on the receiving end. I also can’t emphasize enough marketing efforts as well as the distribution of Press Releases. If done correctly as we learned in class, they have a potential to be very informative and attract important attention to the organization.
At 10:09 PM, March 17, 2008,
Jessica said…
After reading your comment about summing up PR into an image-enhancing tactic, I thought about how public relations is more than that short description. While at first I had the tendency to be very pessimistic about it: that PR is about spinning the story to make an organization look good. These ideas are not un-true (double negative..oops) but I think, compared to just plain advertising or ‘spinning’ its about trying to develop a relationship with the customer or client; trying to connect or make the other feel comfortable with the product or service. In another class we were talking about different business tactics across cultures: Asian cultures rely on relationship building and personal connections to get things done. Negotiating can take place over a very long dinner, you get to truly know one another and build trust, and in the end you make a strong friendship. Western society is not like that: In business its straight to the deal, no beating around the bush with small talk. So, to make up for this lack of relationship between the client and the organization, public relations have to go beyond the superficial and try to make a connectios with the client. That is why the process of creating a PR plan takes research, creativity, and thought.
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