Public Relations has recently gained much notoriety in the marketing world, although the concept has been around since the dawn of business. PR, in essence, takes a brand or company and enhances public opinion by creating buzz and positive media attention around that brand.
Public Relations applies many marketing tactics and uses them in tandem to enhance public perception and strengthens branding and company credibility within ones industry as well as beyond. Tactics and strategies can include Media Placement, Press Alerts, Media Relations, Trade Shows and Special Events, Brand Creation and Management as well as a variety of Marketing Communications.
A common misconception is that Public Relations and Publicity are the one and the same. Publicity is a very important, but only fractional subset of PR. Publicity refers to a company’s coverage placed in the media – radio, TV, newspaper, magazine, trade publications or web based outlets. While a good Public Relations firm will use Publicity quite often, PR actually digs deeper into the root of the brand and public opinion.
Another popular mistake is to interchange the term PR with Advertising. Advertising relies on purchasing power to display ads that are hopefully well situated in the media. These high price points do not always pay off as promised. Although advertising in today’s day and age is a very important means of sustaining a brand’s image, the consumer has unfortunately gained a skeptical outlook on multi-million dollar ad campaigns. Consumers realize that paid actors and biased surveys are quite circumspect. Many consumers actually channel surf through all of those high priced commercials on TV. Public Relations becomes a much more convincing avenue, as it does not often involve high payment and stems through media outlets that the public already trusts and uses to obtain their news.
Public Relations occurs in every business in some way or another, whether it is realized or not. Allowing a PR-specialized team to channel your goals to the public will allow your business to grow in a healthy and prosperous direction.
