Check out this article written by Patti D. Hill, president and founder of BlabberMouth PR . She talks about the importance of strategic planning and plan implementation in public relations.
http://aboutpublicrelations.net/uchill1.htm
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
PR It's What We Do
Every time I meet someone for the first time they ask me what I do. They ask what I am studying and what I want to do when I get out of school. For the most part when I tell people I am a Public Relations major they follow up with, "so what exactly do you do in public relations?" In the past, as in, before I had any real experience, I would simply describe the type of job I wanted after I graduated and hope this would satisfy their curiosity. Sometimes, I would say something along the lines of "well, I would like to build the face of a company from the ground up." Needless to say, that response really didn't help others understand, or for that matter, help me understand what public relations practitioners actually do. But recently I read a brief description of the public relations profession that I found intriguing. It is from Tom Hagley's Writing Winning Proposals PR Cases. He says that, "In public relations, we influence behavior through strategic planning and communication." As I thought about it more I realized that this is exactly what we do.
I spent the summer as a public relations intern planning an event. We spent time calling people for donations and trying to get people to sponsor. We sent out press releases, hoping to entice the media to write or broadcast something about us. We held a press conference, gave out press kits, held interviews, ran commercials, ads, the whole bit. So does this mean we succeeded as public relations practitioners? Well, just because we did all of these things doesn't mean that we did them right. There is more to PR than simply sending out a press release or press kit. These things have to be strategically placed or released. They have to be sent to the right people at the right time. And there is a lot to be said for having and maintaining a good relationship with the media.
So, if we correctly identified who should receive our media day invitation then delivered it to them at the appropriate time and followed up with a phone call, ideally they would show up. And they did. They showed up for the press conference, conducted interviews, participated in all the activities planned for the day, and then wrote or broadcast stories about the event. Through "strategic planning and communication" we successfully practiced public relations.
Public relations is not about deceiving people or tricking them into doing something they would never do. It is about communicating something so well that they can make the best possible decision for themselves. If your company, event, client, etc. is actually who and what they say they are and the pr practitioner has communicated this effectively, people will choose you.
I spent the summer as a public relations intern planning an event. We spent time calling people for donations and trying to get people to sponsor. We sent out press releases, hoping to entice the media to write or broadcast something about us. We held a press conference, gave out press kits, held interviews, ran commercials, ads, the whole bit. So does this mean we succeeded as public relations practitioners? Well, just because we did all of these things doesn't mean that we did them right. There is more to PR than simply sending out a press release or press kit. These things have to be strategically placed or released. They have to be sent to the right people at the right time. And there is a lot to be said for having and maintaining a good relationship with the media.
So, if we correctly identified who should receive our media day invitation then delivered it to them at the appropriate time and followed up with a phone call, ideally they would show up. And they did. They showed up for the press conference, conducted interviews, participated in all the activities planned for the day, and then wrote or broadcast stories about the event. Through "strategic planning and communication" we successfully practiced public relations.
Public relations is not about deceiving people or tricking them into doing something they would never do. It is about communicating something so well that they can make the best possible decision for themselves. If your company, event, client, etc. is actually who and what they say they are and the pr practitioner has communicated this effectively, people will choose you.
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