Everyone knows the term PR and that brands and public figures make use of it for many different reasons, but what does it truly entail?
When thinking about PR, a lot of people have a picture of someone handling a crisis through many phone calls.
Some people picture the image of Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope:
via GIPHY
But there's a bit more to it than that!
media update's Alrika Möller explains the four Ps of PR here:
1. Protect
Every PR professional knows that it is incredibly
important to protect the client.
Sadly, this is not protection in the form of bodyguards or a round table of knights. This form of protection is more
stealth-like and in the form of
communication and
publicity. It happens behind the scenes, but it is just as impressive as any superhero.
Every brand or public figure can fall victim to a crisis. It is the PR professional's job to think ahead and identify possible crisis situations
before they happen so that they can jump into action in case the worst comes to worst.
Protect the client's reputation and relationships for the future. Protection can be
pre-emptive or in the form of a
rescue if it needs to be.
Pre-emptive protection can be the building of strong relationships for your brand through PR events and gifts. Another option is campaigns that create the possibility for
positive feedback rather than opening the client up to negativity.
Rescue often entails addressing a negative situation or trying to increase the spread of positive messaging to balance out the scales.
via GIPHY
2. Press
The press can be a PR professional's best friend and worst enemy —
depending on the day! Using press releases to announce a new product, project or achievement can be a
great way to spread the news.
Using the press as a tool for communication is a common practice in the world of PR. However, sometimes there is a less-than-ideal story circulating in the press.
This is why it is
so important for PR professionals to have a good relationship with the press. You want them on your side! You need them to spread your press release!
Good relationships will make it easier to get those releases out and it will help a lot when you are trying to
minimise any bad press your client is getting.
Whether or not you are a particular fan of the press is, unfortunately, irrelevant as it is an integral part of PR.
via GIPHY
3. Promote
For most public relations campaigns, the goal is to make people aware of something. You want people to
make people aware of the existence of your brand, product, client or whatever else. How do you make people aware?
You promote.
When a brand sends PR packages to a group of celebrities and influencers, the idea is to make them aware of the product or brand. This hopefully gets them to
post about it, which then makes more people aware and those people will tell even more people and so on and so forth until, ideally, the whole world knows about your brand.
Another way to get the promotional ball rolling is
communication.
Posting on social media, getting the press to write good things and sometimes just about
anything about a brand or person is a great way to turn any brand or person into a household name.
via GIPHY
4. Plan
As with most things in life, it is good to have a plan. Without planning a
PR campaign can
fall short, not have enough impact or — even worse — go
unnoticed.
In the world of PR, planning is crucial. Campaigns
usually have a very clear goal that needs to be achieved — whether it is to:
- launch a product
- announce news, or
- address an issue.
Planning in public relations is also often called a
strategy that details the steps that will be taken and what the goal of each step is.
These steps build on each other to create a plan of action that will achieve the intended goal.
If the planning is done insufficiently, chances are the goal will not be reached and the client will be back where they were before the campaign even started.
via GIPHY
PR is an integral part of the success of any business or brand. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments section below.
*Image courtesy of Canva