There seems to be a slight misunderstanding of the Public Relations art. The closely related Marketing Dept. are having trouble distinguishing the difference between our practices and theirs.
The key difference between the two can be established by their objectives. Marketing efforts are in place to facilitate the sales process, whereas PR focuses on building and strengthening relationships between the company and its stakeholders.
A company stakeholder can be anyone who is affected by, or interested in the activities and/or products of the company. A stakeholder can be those who happen to live in the surrounding community, employees, customers, shareholders, investors, etc.
There is a fair deal of elements of each job function that are almost identical. In Marketing and PR, we focus on communicating the messages of the company or brand to the most relevant audiences. We both conduct research to decide what those messages should be and determine who should receive them. We both plan and staff company-sponsored events and trade shows, and we both help create content for marketing collateral, assist with advertising and put together similar types of proposals, budgets and reports.
The new online element to PR determines its unique purpose. The intention of social networking is not to sell products directly or to advertise but to create a relationship and understanding between consumer and brand.
The purpose of marketing is to broadcast and sell to the masses. It has one aim in mind, and that is profit. PR however is more than just that. It is listening to and monitoring the brands identity and audiences. The role is also to respond and react to audiences to ensure the company’s reputation is protected. Public relations has come as far as building online communities for brands to monitor and allowed easy two way communication and to maintain long term relationships.
A recent definition of marketing published by the AMA (The Arts Marketing Associations) has developed the idea of traditional marketing to sound more public focused:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.
PR professional Bill Sledzik comments on this definition on his blog: “Now, tell me our ‘evil twins’ haven’t been reading the PR textbooks... I’m not sure a power trip is a good way to launch a relationship or to serve “society at large.” So I’m hopeful our friends in marketing will just continue to sell stuff. They’re damned good at it — especially when PR helps them!”
Showing posts with label public relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public relations. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Public Affair Nightmare
Suspicious, manipulative, investigative and intrusive. Just some of the words used by local councilors to describe what they thought of Journalists.
This January, I worked in PR department at Leicestershire County Council, as part of work experience for my course. On the first day, Media Relations Officer, Mel Atkinson, invited me along to a press training day at Charnwood Borough Council. The aim of the training was to help council officers to be more prepared for the media.
The training addressed issues such as ‘predicting the news’, ‘being prepared for crisis’ and ‘communication is better than no communication’.
If council officers were to take a couple of hours to look at any projects, issues or trends that are occurring, they would be able to forecast potential media interest. This would allow them to be more prepared for spontaneous phone calls from their local reporter and so they would know when to bite their bottom lip if they need to.
It is also important for the councilor not to get too ‘chatty’. There have been cases where a member would fall into conversation with the journalist and accidently let slip information that would be front page news the next day.
As a journalist, it was interesting to witness the attitudes from the council officers towards their local reporters. One member questioned why a journalist would not leave him alone, even though there was no progress on the issue being questioned. He commented on their persistence and how he felt obliged to respond in case the journalist reported on him negatively. This lead to some inaccuracy in the information he provided.
The advice given was to ALWAYS COMMENT. No matter what. Even it is just council jargon, it is still communication. Having a positive relationship with the local media is the best way for a council to operate. The public want honest information, and although not always the case, the media is the most objective form of communication they can digest.
Ex-Journalists working in governmental PR departments is only a positive change. Having been the receiver of information, a media relations officer who has worked as a journalist, would be an expert on predicting stories, giving information the public actually care about and monitoring quotes which could be potentially damaging.
This January, I worked in PR department at Leicestershire County Council, as part of work experience for my course. On the first day, Media Relations Officer, Mel Atkinson, invited me along to a press training day at Charnwood Borough Council. The aim of the training was to help council officers to be more prepared for the media.
The training addressed issues such as ‘predicting the news’, ‘being prepared for crisis’ and ‘communication is better than no communication’.
If council officers were to take a couple of hours to look at any projects, issues or trends that are occurring, they would be able to forecast potential media interest. This would allow them to be more prepared for spontaneous phone calls from their local reporter and so they would know when to bite their bottom lip if they need to.
It is also important for the councilor not to get too ‘chatty’. There have been cases where a member would fall into conversation with the journalist and accidently let slip information that would be front page news the next day.
As a journalist, it was interesting to witness the attitudes from the council officers towards their local reporters. One member questioned why a journalist would not leave him alone, even though there was no progress on the issue being questioned. He commented on their persistence and how he felt obliged to respond in case the journalist reported on him negatively. This lead to some inaccuracy in the information he provided.
The advice given was to ALWAYS COMMENT. No matter what. Even it is just council jargon, it is still communication. Having a positive relationship with the local media is the best way for a council to operate. The public want honest information, and although not always the case, the media is the most objective form of communication they can digest.
Ex-Journalists working in governmental PR departments is only a positive change. Having been the receiver of information, a media relations officer who has worked as a journalist, would be an expert on predicting stories, giving information the public actually care about and monitoring quotes which could be potentially damaging.
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