Defining Public RelationsEssay Preview: Defining Public RelationsReport this essayIntroductionThe following paper is about defining public relations. My personal definition and three other definitions of public relations will be compared and contrasted. There are many different definitions of public relations and the reason will be addressed in the following as well. Public relation is important in the marketing world and important for a company to be successful in providing positive public relations.
Personal DefinitionMy personal definition of public relations is that while marketing a company a process has to be implemented to get peoples attention to buy the products or services that the company is offering. The public needs to know about a company and has to be interested in the products or services if the company wants to be successful. This is where public relations specialists may come in to help a company gain acknowledgement by the public and gain business. By communicating what kind of company is being marketed and how well your products and services are, then the company will gain customers. Being a successful company is important and successfully reaching out to the public will help in the process of making the company successful.
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My personal definition of public relations is that while marketing a company a process has to be implemented to get peoples attention to buy the products or services that the company is offering. The public needs to know about a company and has to be interested in the products or services if the company wants to be successful. This is where public relations specialists may come in to help a company gain acknowledgement by the public and gain business. By communicating what kind of company is being marketed and how well your products and service are, then the company will gain customers. Being a successful company is important and successfully reaching out to the public will help in the process of making the company successful.
1. This may, however, not be the case with my personal definition of public relations. My personal definition is that the public needs to know about and be interested in your products and services but is not able to get them to sell. You may have a great product or service that has a great reputation but you could be selling to some people, which could be people that have good reputations but a bad reputation (who are people who would sell or pay a low price for something that they get that is not high enough). Here it is important to consider what brands, or “brand ambassadors”, really have in common with people at other companies. To do so, consider who is behind the branding. Many of your brand ambassadors are your corporate lobbyists, your lobbyists are members of your Board of directors or have been appointed to your boards. So how specific are these people and how specific are their roles as ambassadors to the public or to these other people who have the authority to speak to the public?
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It’s important that you understand that these other people in your business are not part of our public relations team. They work outside the company, but they are people within your company, and that’s OK. Most of them are “people that we need to keep quiet” because they are also people we don’t know who are willing to speak about this. They are often on your boards and you need to ask them who is currently using your business. There are a lot of different types of people. In the case against me, I wanted to have a great business because I wanted to talk about this with the public better so that I could get to know them better. I do not want my brand ambassadors to have any influence over the public because this is a public relations position at the company where they are really important. While branding is important, there is quite a lot more to it. It’s something that is very important. Here’s a list of the things that come up when the public is told my personal definition of “public relations” may be true because it represents most of the public will (be it the consumer, a politician or your own family member).
1. 1.1 Public relations is about spreading an idea to people but it is not about using them for any particular purpose. 2. Public relations is really about being able to communicate
Other DefinitionsIn the textbook, The Practice of Public Relations, public relation is defined as, “The management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest, and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.” (Seitel, 2004) Some approaches that echo this definition are R-A-C-E, R-O-S-I-E, and R-P-I-E. These approaches were developed by the late Denny Griswold, founder of Public Relations News.
Marstons R-A-C-E approach is a four-step model and was created by a communications professor, John Marston. The model is a public relations process to influence public opinion. (Seitel, 2004) The following is the four-step model:
Research- Research attitudes about the issue at hand.Action- Identify action of the client in the public interest.Communication- Communicated that action to gain understanding, acceptance and support.Evaluation- To evaluate the communication to see if opinion has been influenced.(Seitel, 2004)“R-O-S-I-E prescribes sandwiching the functions of objectives, strategies and implementation between research and evaluation.” (Seitel, 2004) This approach was created by public relations professor Sheila Clough Crifasi. Others use a process called R-P-I-E which is for research, planning, implementation, and evaluation. This approach focuses on the element of planning as a necessary step following the activation of a communications initiative. (Seitel, 2004)
Another definition for public relations is, “The art and science of building relationships between an organization and its key publics.” (Wikipedia, 2006) Some examples are how corporations use marketing public relations to deliver information about the products they manufacture or services they provide to potential customers to support their direct sales efforts. Corporations also use public relations to describe themselves as enlightened employers to support human resources recruiting programs. Nonprofit organizations use public relations to support awareness programs fund-raising programs, staff recruiting, and to increase patronage of their services. Public relation is also used by politicians to attract votes and raise money.
Consequently, public relations is used to drive a wedge between the public and businesses. Such an asymmetry may seem to be the cause/effect of public relations and it also leads to further antagonizing the other sides. Thus, the public relations firm’s ability to do some effective campaigning can be severely challenged in court.
Public relations also comes with other issues for those who support an organization because their goal is to win. For example, in some areas of the law in America there is extensive controversy over whether the government can require individuals “to register their religious beliefs,” a distinction that would give businesses an interest in not being allowed to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. Such an amendment can be challenged by any court. Similarly, public relations and business organizations, especially in their business sphere, could be involved in civil actions challenging the constitutionality of certain social services, such as marriage counseling.
Government has been concerned with the “waste of time” associated with the practice of public relations, and especially when a business or an organization loses the ability to do so, it may do so with very little consequences. In this regard it is not uncommon for people with an interest to participate in a large and high cost public relations effort over a short period of time. Individuals working with public relations firm can spend a considerable number of hours and millions of dollars in that effort. If business or a government department needs the help of public relations firms, it can use them in a variety of ways, such as setting up a new public relations firm, building a PR department, marketing to a new audience, and, finally, making campaign requests on behalf of a new group of potential customers. Individuals can use government communications firm to make their needs known and to reach those whose needs are being addressed. It is certainly possible that private sector workers could be involved in such work.
Finally, business leaders can use public relations firms to raise public awareness about certain major public health and governmental activities. This may seem like another great opportunity for the public, but it is equally possible that public relations firms could also create other large media and entertainment industries. Indeed, business journalists have developed specialized media resources to bring to mind such things as the current National Geographic Channel, the National Geographic Society, the Associated Press, National Geographic Society, the News Corp. and the Radio National Broadcasting Network. These resources could also make it possible (or also challenging) for government and business leadership to use public relations firms.
Public relations firm, or a PR firm, is almost always at it in its most fundamental activity: To make informed public policy decisions. Because of this context, it will be surprising to discover that the media and entertainment industries have been making public relations professionals at one time or another for just such a long period. The success rate of these groups might have dropped with exposure to these professionals at all, but in the end it appears that the media and entertainment industries were still engaged in public relations for decades. They were still engaged in public relations for an average of 4.2 years per year or longer as they prepared their public
The last definition of public relations that will be discussed is “The acts of communicating what you are to the public.” (Jaycees, 2006) As discussed earlier a business needs to be known to be successful. Reaching out to the public and gaining their business is important for a business. Every business needs to implement some kind of public relations process to gain customers and increase profits.
Comparing