My public relations definition was true about public relations; however, there is much more that goes into public relations than what I had said. My public relations definition was, "PR is engaging the public via reporting, social media, press releases, etc. Whether it's responding to a crisis or simply drawing engagement from the community, the organization is part of it. As well as creating community and drawing people in to promote yourselves." My preconceptions about public relations were that it's more about being responsive than planning. What I mean by "more about being responsive than planning" is that it's more about responding to problematic situations or the media.
While that is definitely part of it, public relations goes deeper than that. Public relations is more about strategic planning to promote a client or your own organization to not only the public but also investors. An academic journal from the Public Relations Review written by several authors. Did a study on the "The Role of Leadership in Shared Value Creation From The Public's Perspective: A Multi-Continental Study." Here's what they had to say about how important creating shared value, or CSV can be to business leaders "Additionally, if public relations professionals understand how the public perceives CSV, they can give a strategic perspective to top management for maximizing moral capabilities of the business and formulate effective communication to promote CSV initiatives." (Chen, Y.-R. R., Hung-Baesecke, C.-J. F., Bowen, S. A., Zerfass, A., Stacks, D. W., & Boyd, B., 2020)
To formulate content shared value like this, it takes a variety of skills and platforms in order to be effective. It takes blogging, social networking, and more. What's great about public relations is that it can be the smallest thing, and it would still fall under the umbrella of public relations. Kareem Abouzeid of Auto Body Repair Network tells us, "The truth is every action is a promotional action." (Abouzeid, 2018). Abouzeid talks about the appearance of your overall store or how you treat customers are part of public relations (Abouzeid, 2018). This is what makes public relations special; public relations is in the simple details that normal people don't think of.
As well as it dips into things like marketing, advertising, writing, and social media. An article written by Dianne Franklin of Credit Union Management wrote about how Navy Federal Credit Union is using a team of digital marketing to build their social media brand "Navy Federal CU has the resources to staff a team of digital marketing specialists, each of whom has deep expertise in a particular social media channel. "So, across the entire team, somebody is our Instagram expert, somebody is our Pinterest expert, and the same with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter," King explains." (Franklin, 2019).
This is why public relations is so useful and so important; organizations are recognizing the importance of their image and the need to promote themselves, from the collision shop doing the small things like checking to see if the parking lot is clean, to a dedicated team for digital marketing. This is why I love public relations because every detail matters! I also love the number of duties and fields it dips into! This week has shown me really how deep public relations goes and how versatile of a field it is.
References
Abouzeid, K. (2018). Marketing and Promoting Your Shop. Auto Body Repair Network, 57(7), 82. https://www.searchautoparts.com/abrn/shop-owner/tips-marketing-and-promoting-collision-repair-shop
Chen, Y.-R. R., Hung-Baesecke, C.-J. F., Bowen, S. A., Zerfass, A., Stacks, D. W., & Boyd, B. (2020). The role of leadership in shared value creation from the public’s perspective: A multi-continental study.Public Relations Review,46(1), N.PAG.
Franklin, D. (2019). Build Your Social Media Brand: Increasing Your CU’S Social Presence Requires Dedicated Resources and an Integrated Digital Marketing Strategy. Credit Union Management, 42 (9), 38-40 from
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