What the Public Relations industry is doing seems to be a terrible public relations job, because very few people can explain what people in Public Relations really do. If you’re a police officer, a construction worker or a salesman, everyone knows your job function. But if you own a boutique PR agency, you constantly have to explain that we don’t buy ads, we don’t order journalists to write stories for our clients, we don’t produce cute radio jingles and we don’t give out free samples at the mall, but that we try to promote our customers, our products or ourselves, but unlike advertisers, we persuade our external or internal audiences through unpaid or earned methods and whether it is traditional media, social media engagements or speech, we communicate with our audience through confidential and unpaid sources.
So to help the general public understand Public Relations and how to use these skills, here are five things everyone should know about Public Relations:
1. Networking and communication are keys – What is crucial and important is that PR provides a way for you to engage with others and understand how to build successful customer relationships that will go a long way. Networking is a way of establishing true relationships with others, a process of trusting and engaging in the exchange of necessary information – it is a way of life, and while communication is essential in PR, it signals that communication used effectively can transform your company and relationships into life. Rafał Sałak, Communications Lead at Prowly, says: “Public relations is communication of an intended message that aims to result in a shift of audience’s attitude (towards a person, brand, event, etc.)”
2. The importance of working well with others and constructing concise pieces of work – So building and maintaining good relationships with others is something that PR strives to achieve to benefit the company or organization you work with and what it is about is the opportunity to do the work of the company efficiently and effectively to have benefit the best interest of its clients.
3. A proper understanding of skill sets is implemented – PR involves building and acquiring multiple skill sets, so when you are dealing with PR, you can easily see how important it is to be successful in achieving your goals. It is therefore an important responsibility, to keep in touch with current events, writing, researching, content-related material, identifying ways to reach a large audience, measuring results, leadership and organizational skills, appropriate communication tactics and most importantly PR needs to be actively involved in promoting and doing the right thing.
4. Our profession is needed in a series of occupations in the world – It can be said that PR specialists are awakening the business world by storm, since with the wide range of roles that PR involves, it is absolutely necessary to help a company and / or organization be successful. PR work is essential to help drive demand and the ever-changing world we live in, and these are some examples of industries that need PR professionals: nonprofits, entertainment, government, sports, etc.
5. Making a difference is the motto – Being able to communicate a message to people in different ways is something that makes PR so unique, yet being able to do Public Relations through the intent of a company mission statement demonstrates common ground and it is really important to make a difference in making people content, informed and aware, but also to help your company with a personal set of skills that emphasize your brand.
As Grzegorz Szczepański, CEO at Hill+Knowlton Strategies Poland, ZFPR, says: “Public relations is the art of creating lasting relationships, based on respect and truth, between interdependent entities existing in the public domain. PR has nothing to do with manipulation, twisting the reality, smearing competitors or political opponents, or praising made up qualities of products, services, parties, or public figures. PR teaches you the principles of correct exchange of information between individuals and companies.”