I found an article on the Forbes website about
how the world of public relations is changing from focusing on social awareness
to behavior change. The article
claims that there is an issue with public relations campaigns today and there
is a “gap between the impact of the work and the unclear objectives of
the work”. This means that public
relations campaigns have intentions, which involve action, but the campaigns
are focused too heavily on the informational side of public relations.
Public
relations professional are very effective at creating relationships, which is one
reason why they utilize social media so well. “PR people were among the first
business people to embrace social media, and they made early efforts to
integrate it into their portfolio of services.” Being able to connect to an audience on a personal level is crucial
but that connection also needs to be able to motivate and inspire action. For example, if your are hired to increase
good will towards Justin Bieber in a PR campaign promoting his altruistic side,
you would also be wanting that good feeling to correlate with album sales, that
is why he hired you.
The
author states that public relation firms have begun integrating into marketing. Public relations has always operated
closely with marketing and the author believes that good social campaigns asks
you to do something not just talk about it or feel a certain way about
something. I believe that this article has an interesting view on public relations and the points it make in regard to action should be considered when creating a PR campaign. In conclusion the narrative portion of a campaign is the “first mile”,
and action is the last step, which should not be overlooked.
Reference:
Nicole this is an excellent post for the class, especially as it talks about the effectiveness of creating relationships and connecting to an audience through social media. This as become vital in order to successfully connect with the world using your public relation skills. It is also a good relation in terms of the work we just did when making our campaign. I'm sure though to public relation firms this is the first mile of many!
ReplyDeleteThis article correlates with some of the questions I've had when learning about Public Relations. Many of the definitions outline the PR professionals as the liaison between the company and it's publics, and that the objectives of the PR department is not for profits, but to shed the company in the best light. However, this seems to contrast with the concept of business. By putting money into Public Relations the company, if not the department would expect to see returns not just in interest in the company but ROI and profits. If the organizational leaders did not see some sort of benefit they would not invest in the department. Bottom line, the PR department is not simply the liaison between to sides, they are being paid by one, thus an advocate for that side. This does not mean that they should not use ethics and look past profits whenever they can, because if the support is there from the upper level management, a lot of good can be done and not all of it would have to show an increase in sales.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how the author of this article discuses his struggle with the gap in PR between the impact of the work and the unclear objectives of the work. How can a PR professional measure the effectiveness of his or her work if there are no clear objectives to aspire to? I have often wondered how to measure a PR campaign’s success when objectives and strategies are clearly established to reach desired outcome.
ReplyDeleteNicole – the Justin Bieber example you used was a perfect illustration of this point. If the outcome of a campaign is to generate goodwill towards Justin Bieber, what can a PR professional use to measure their audience’s goodwill? Goodwill may come across as increased album sales or more hits on YouTube. My point being, efficient PR is not merely measured by social awareness but inspiring and motivating your audience to change a behavior. This change in behavior should be measurable (such as increased sales or social media hits), attainable, and contain clear, established objectives.
I had never thought about PR professionals being the first adapters of social media but you make a good point. Since they do make a personal connection with their audiences they should be able to talk to their audiences in new and effective ways.
ReplyDeleteI understand how PR professionals interact with marketing. They are very close in their career paths and they can help each other with new and creative ideas. It is all about getting the message out and finding the most effective way to do so. I think that teaming up with other professionals and teaming up with social media is an effective way.