Introduction to Public Relations

Introduction to PR

• Public Relations (PR) involves strategic communication to foster beneficial relationships between organizations and their respective publics.
• Common perceptions of PR work includes media relations and what PR actually involves includes event Planning and crisis Communication

What PR Does

• PR activities encompass event planning, media relations, crisis communication, internal communication, reputation management, and digital/new media strategies.
• It also includes research and networking support.
• Public relations also includes creative resources, market research and writing

Key Characteristics of Public Relations

• PR efforts are deliberate, planned, and focused on performance, serving the public interest through two-way communication, and acting as a management function.

Advertising vs. Public Relations

• Advertising employs purchase and persuasion tactics, using a one-way and transactional approach, while PR engages two-way communication and relational strategies.

Publics and Strategies

• Publics are groups sharing common interests, impacting or being impacted by an organization.
• Stakeholders are individuals or publics with a vested interest in an organization or issue.
• General public is considered too broad a term for strategic communication.
• Consumers are involved in decisions to engage with companies, offering feedback that affects their buying decisions.

Resource Dependency Theory

• Resource Dependency Theory, developed by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik, views organizations as open systems reliant on external contingencies.
• Companies collaborate to manage dependence on essential resources, forming relationships to obtain needed resources from other organizations.

Types of Publics in Public Relations

• Traditional Publics: Have established, ongoing relationships.
• Nontraditional Publics: A group unfamiliar but could become traditional.
• Intervening Publics: Are relied upon to pass messages along, such as the news media

Investor Publics

• Include individual shareholders, financial analysts, financial news media, mutual fund managers, institutional investors, and employee investors.

Community Publics

• Includes public officials, educators, religious leaders, professionals, executives, bankers, union leaders, ethnic leaders, and neighborhood opinion leaders.
• Other community groups fall under services such as civic, service, social, cultural, religious, youth, political, and special-interest categories.

Business Publics

• B2B relates to Business-to-business communication and includes vendors, distributors, retailers, customer businesses, and even competitors.

Public Relations Strategies

• Proactive Strategy 1: Organization Performance focuses on what an organization does versus what it says
• Audience Engagement: Involves communicating relevant interests, encouraging public participation, gathering feedback, and creating triggering events.
• Special events such as staged activities and publicity stunts are for attention but need value beyond that.
• Great Photo Ops: (photo opportunities) attract visual media.

Strategic Approaches

• Sponsorships and volunteerism are strategies for community relations, and activism uses persuasive communication for advocacy.
• Civil disobedience supports social causes, while publicity values news media attention.
• Media Gatekeepers: Such as reporters control media access and newsworthy information matters.
• Generating News: News and publicity events should have visual elements, and a news peg connects topics to current media reports.

Transparent Communication

• Relates to being open and observable to gain public trust, through things they can support.
• A prebuttal strategy releases bad news preemptively, while offensive responses address accusations.
• Attack is when an offensive response claims the accusation is malicious, while embarrassment is related to shame.
• In public relations, shock is is startling someone or a group of people with sudden fear or disgust.
• A threatening strategy makes a promise of harm for bad news, and standing firm maintains a strong stance

Defensive Responses

• Denial rejects blame, while excuses minimize responsibility, and justification provides reasons for actions. Reversal accuses the accuser.

Diversion Responses

• Concession rebuilds relationships by giving the public something it wants, and disassociation distances from wrongdoing, while relabeling tries to replace negative labels.

Vocal Commiseration

• Concern expresses empathy without admitting guilt, offering temporary remedy, while condolence expresses grief without admitting guilt, fitting in blame-free issues.

Apologies

• Regret admits sorrow over a situation, and apology prioritizes public interests.
• Rectifying behavior, investigation promises examination and action, acting as a short-term buying time solution.
• Corrective action contains issues and repairs damages while restitution attends the interests of the people.
• Repentance shows change of heart. Strategic silence avoids response and strategic ambiguity refuses a fixed answer. Strategic inaction involves no response or action to allow the issue to pass.

Internal and External Communication Crisis

• Communication ensures smooth business operations.
• Internal communication refers to employees talking, where internal includes management as well.
• Key Components of internal communication include feedback loops and effective communication.

Benefits of Effective Communication

• Improving efficiency and morale.
• Communication is effective between 2 groups if a sender and receiver are present.

Phases of Crisis Communication

• Involve stages of prevention, preparedness, response, recovery.

5 C's of Crisis Communication

• Competence showcases knowledge and skill, while credibility concedes the obvious, commitment expresses dedication, caring shows concern, and capability resolves issues.

Best Practices during a Crisis

• Have sympathy and apologize only when you need to.
• Direct the crisis team to one event at a time, and understand the importance of why all media are present.
• Resist an aggressive approach
• Have a trained spokesperson, and think of a worst case scenario before it happens

Crisis Communication Research

• Image Repair Theory restores image when attacked by denial and corrective action.
• Situational Crisis Communication Theory links crisis strategies to crisis types, focusing on stakeholder perceptions.
• Social Mediated Crisis Communication Model investigates online crisis management through factors like crisis origin and message strategy.
• Corporate Social Responsibility involves communication and stakeholder engagement.

Public Perception

• PR must be aware of stakeholder engagement and management, and storytelling as well.
• Functional PR manages communication and builds relationships, with strategic planning and advocacy.
• It involves two-way communication.

Public Relations Audit

• A PR audit assesses stakeholder perceptions and guides campaign creation by clarifying business purpose, staying ahead of the competition, and reviewing strategy, enabling proactive PR planning.

Becoming a leader in PR

• Achieved through planning and the utilization of a PR audit.

Checking How Involved Stakeholders Are

• Internal stakeholders represent the organization, external stakeholders affect consumer feedback, investors relate to gaining confidence, and suppliers gain trust.

PR Audit Steps

• Research which includes backgrounder and achievements analysis, conducts a SWOT, and Monitors the media.
• More so, the audit analyzes public and stakeholder opinion, and provides advice.

PR for Social Projects

• Social marketing influences behavior for societal benefit.
• 4 P's of Marketing includes product and services.
• Additional P's in the form of publics and parternships must be considered.

Types of PR Practices

• Practices include corporate, agency, government/public affairs, and non-profit/NGO.
• PR work as a graduate experience creates opportunity and an increase references.

Press Kit Materials

• Media materials, including press releases, increase awareness and media files supplement information.
• Boilerplate serves as an "about section" and gives general information.

The Importance of Research

• Research makes communication two-way by collecting information from the public rather than one way, which is a simple dissemination of information
• Research makes public relations strategic by ensuring that communication is specifically targeted to publics who want, need, or care about the information.
• Research allows us to show results, to measure impact, and to refocus our efforts based on those numbers.

Purpose of Research

• Research campaigns meet goals, operate strategically, and measure results.
• Formal research gathers statistics.
• Informal research gathers opinions.
• Quantitative research uses surveys and data analysis.
• Qualitative research uses interviews and case studies, while triangulation combines methods for reliable results.