Unit 3 public relations

Lead-in

1 Discuss the following questions with your partner.

1 How can you reinforce the image of your company?

2 What services does a PR agency provide?

3 What PR strategies are you aware of?

4 What are the most common PR tools?

2 Discuss the following quotations.

Don’t open a shop unless you like to smile.

Chinese Proverb

To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one's tail.

Thomas E. Lawrence

Write a paraphrase of each. Say whether you agree or not, and why.

KEY VOCABULARY

Public Relations Basics

Good PR will generate understanding and positive interest in your business. It will whet potential customers' appetite for more information, prompt enquiries, re-establish dormant contracts and reinforces your image with existing customers.

PR is a long-term process to do with developing an image and a reputation with your customers and the market as a whole. Often this image is created by cumulative effect, based on the quality of your printed materials, your staff, and the willingness of your customers to broadcast their good experiences. You can however devise strategies to focus your approach, aimed at enhancing your reputation with people whose opinion you value.

You need to set objectives for your PR so that you have a clear idea what communications message you want to send out. Your PR activities should then aim to reinforce those messages in the mind of the public.

Publicity is the part of PR which involves capitalising on 'newsworthy' events or opportunities - using the press to send a positive message to your marketplace. This is a more tactical activity and a publicity plan should be included in your one-year plan.

Managing your PR can take up a lot of time and it is often easy to miss good PR opportunities simply because you are too busy, or too close to the story. Many small businesses use the services of a PR agency. This does not need to be expensive and may pay for itself in the long term - consider whether this route should be part of your strategy.

You must remember however, that PR cannot be used to guarantee results as you have no direct control over what is reported, how and when.

Text 1 Public Relations

Public relations is about building and preserving the image of a business, organization, or well known person. Referred to as the art of managing communication with the public, it is also about promotion, or improving the visibility of a business.

While it can be synonymous with marketing, it is often used to refer to interaction with news media, endorsements, and items of public interest. As opposed to advertising, it often refers to public speeches, responses to emergencies, and media events. Today it is often expanded to include the realm of social media, a subject new enough not to have found a permanent home in either marketing or public relations.

The primary goal of public relations should be to establish rapport on a broad scale. This isn’t always with customers. It could be voters, investors, shareholders, or employees. Being a broad term, firms or individuals working in the industry often refer to themselves with the name of a targeted group or organization followed by “relations.” Examples include media relations, labor relations, financial public relations, and so on.

Often, the job of a public relations individual or firm is to submit press releases. Despite this, there are some sources who now claim the press release is on its way out as a useful PR tool. Often, a PR professional is the individual who the public most strongly identifies with a brand. In the mind of the public, the PR representative “is” the brand.