A Brand New Day for Public Relations
By Jill Schuller

For many businesses, the mention of public relations conjures up simplistic images of mailing press releases to editors and appearing at news conferences. While these activities are certainly an overall part of any public relations effort, they are just a small part. In fact, just as technology has changed the face of graphic design and communication, it is changing the perceived value of public relations to put this on equal footing with all the other tools in a professional marketer’s kit. 

So what is the basic purpose of public relations? The dictionary defines it as “the practice or profession of establishing, maintaining, or improving a favorable relationship between an institution, or person, and the public.”   Traditionally, a PR specialist would work with media outlets to create a positive public image by getting news stories published or aired that highlighted their product or company. The true scope is really bigger than just pushing stories. Done in alignment with a solid marketing program, public relations:

1. builds the brand image of the company and/or product
2. supports the marketing strategy by keeping the message consistent
3. creates a positive impression and interest in the company or organization among stakeholders (employees, Board of Directors), the target audience, and the community at large

Like any tool we use for promotion of a company or product, there are upsides and downsides that have to be weighed. With public relations, due to its unpaid nature, you cannot exercise control over the final editorial content. That is always a bit of a risk; you can present your information how you want it to appear, but you are dependent on how it is translated and interpreted by the editor. Sometimes the story is great – newsworthy, timely, appropriate for the media outlet’s target audience - and something pesky like a military conflict or a world bank failure might break out that very day and bump your story. Those are downsides, but that is why public relations works in conjunction WITH all your other marketing tools and is not the only tool you should use.

Effective PR does what all good marketing does, but with the appearance of objectivity. It is akin to testimonials – another ‘old school’ marketing technique that has been around forever because, frankly, it works. No matter how skeptical we think we are, we still tend to view media coverage as somewhat unbiased, and therefore, influential. People will read a newspaper story and see it as an impartial, objective reporting of facts, as opposed to a full page advertisement that is crafted to tell you a specific message defined by the company placing the ad. This is not to say advertising doesn’t affect decision-making, it just is perceived by the audience in a different way. You can also gain far more detail about a company or product in an article, including some history, interesting facts, and even quotes from influential people.

Paid advertising only appears in the place you pay to be advertising. A good PR story can be seen or heard not just at the media outlet it was original sent to, but potentially can spread a wider net and be picked up by others to expand the distribution channels even further. That is PR at its finest. When you look at the return on investment, it just makes sense to see PR as an incredibly useful tool that really brings value to your marketing program.

There are the standard foundations of PR:

1. working with multiple media outlets to spread the word
2. conducting press events or other special events to get coverage
3. maintaining positive stakeholder relations (your staff and your investors)
4. implementing corporate citizenship with sponsorships of a philanthropic nature
5. creating newsletters for current or prospective clients

In addition, there are the ‘new millennium’ aspects of PR. Let’s fast forward to how public relations can be used to become the ‘new’ tool of marketing with all the giant leaps in new technology:

1. Blogs
2. MySpace® pages
3. News Forums
4. PodCasts
5. RSS Feeds
6. Search Engine Rankings
7. Capacity for unlimited global distribution of press coverage

Most of these things were not on anyone’s radar nor part of our collective conscious ten years ago. Now it seems everyone uses the tools of the net to not just conduct social networking, but to sell their product or company. While some view businesses’ infiltration into things like blogs as an intrusion, the truth is business is just going where their target audience is – which is what marketing strives to do, right?

Blogs can be produced to allow staff, key executives, and even customers to place information and opinions about the company’s newest widget or service. MySpace can work the same way, but is typically more of a one-person op-ed tool rather than a community-wide commentary.  News forums are a little tricky since they are typically anonymous, but they can provide some great third-party commentary.  PodCasts and RSS feeds allow for some control over the message, although the shelf-life of the PodCast is a little longer. Then there is the search for the holy grail of top search engine rankings – you can see this as a two-sided marketing opportunity. There are paid methods and there are well-placed, strategic methods at no cost to increase your rankings – both work. One is considered ‘advertising’ and one is more along the lines of public relations because it is unpaid. 

With any of these new PR channels, what is increasingly apparent to marketing companies is the need to monitor them - a negative comment on a blog has to be handled swiftly. Crisis management is not just the arena of the big Fortune 500 companies; an opinion stated on your company blog that is not keeping with your message can undo a lot of hard work. So today’s public relations specialists have to be very aware of all the places their messages are being sent – which is why we are seeing a proliferation of monitoring companies whose sole function is to track online content on a daily basis.