You probably have a good idea of what public relations (PR) is, but actually defining it can be tough. So, what exactly is public relations and how do you execute an effective PR strategy?
What Is PR?
Public relations involves strategic, planned communication from an organization to the public. Many organizations perform PR including multinational enterprises, small businesses, not-for-profits, educational institutions and governments. These organizations may have PR professionals on staff, or they may contract a PR firm or marketing agency to handle their media relations.
What Do Public Relations Specialists Do?
PR professionals focus on how to communicate with the public, but the nature of their tasks changes depending on the type of organization for which they work. Some common responsibilities of PR people include:
- Brainstorming public relations campaigns: PR work often dovetails with the tasks of marketers and publicists. A PR professional may hold either of these titles or work with these professionals to create publicity and PR campaigns.
- Writing press releases: Press releases are official organizational statements that PR teams distribute to the media and the general public. Press releases might announce a new product launch, change of leadership, rebranding or clarification of or response to a news story.
- Content writing: Content creation is often key to PR. In addition to press releases, PR copywriters may write blogs, social media posts, scripts for leadership or spokespeople and responses to media inquiries. Content and social media marketing can be major aspects of digital PR strategies.
- Public speaking: PR specialists may also address the public and media directly. As spokespeople, they may hold press conferences and participate in TV, email and radio interviews.
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Why Is Public Relations Important?
It’s great to think your product or service can speak for itself. However, for most organizations, this is not practical. It’s important to notify the public about what you’re doing and get them excited. This is what content marketing and advertising is about.
Advertising and marketing are great for promoting a brand, product or service. PR strategies can serve these purposes, too, but they’re also particularly useful for crisis communication; PR professionals can draft a press release to respond to a negative development within hours.
Public relations may take place over a variety of media. Different organizations can utilize numerous channels, and some are more appropriate for different messages and audiences. Useful media for PR include:
- Press releases.
- Social media.
- Email.
- Press conferences.
- Television or radio interviews.
- Magazine articles.
- Blog posts.
Good Public Relations vs. Bad Public Relations
Some say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. This maxim is highly suspect.
History is littered with suboptimal PR campaigns. A key part of any piece of PR is communication. Good PR communicates valuable information in a way that excites the target audience. Bad PR is often tone-deaf or misunderstanding of the situation. If people respond to a press release with, “Read the room,” then you know that’s an ineffective communiqué.
A good PR strategy always stays on brand, using language and tone consistent with the overall personality of the organization. It should also be about something noteworthy; you never want your audience feeling like you’ve wasted their time.
Best PR Campaign Examples
Sometimes the best way to learn is to look at successful examples of what others have done and emulate them. Here are a few public relations examples from companies who clearly got their media relations right:
“Just Do It”
You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who’s unaware of this famous Nike slogan. It’s captured the entire ethos of the brand, making it much more than an ad or PR campaign. It’s aspirational and inspirational — having featured dozens of world-famous athletes — but it’s also relatable. No, you’ll never ball like MJ or ace a serve like Serena, but the biggest thing stopping you from reaching your fitness goals is you. Just do it. (But first, you’re supposed to buy some Nike shoes or apparel, of course.)
“Even Divas Are Believers”
Hostels offer a great, inexpensive way to travel. They allow you to meet other travelers, make friends and save some money while you see the world. While hostels aren’t for everyone, HostelWorld had a hunch that more people would enjoy a hostel stay if they actually tried it.
If only they could show hostels were good enough for people with finer tastes — good enough for divas, even. So, HostelWorld did the logical thing: they called Mariah Carey.
The result was a funny and memorable ad and PR campaign that made more travelers receptive to the idea of a hostel.
“Rebuild the World”
Lego has long been more than a toy for kids. Over the decades, Lego has amassed an army of adult fans and has cross-promoted with dozens of brands. To hammer home that Lego is more than plastic bricks, they showed how you can use Lego to rebuild the world.
When a Public Relations Campaign Goes Awry
Sometimes the best way to learn is to look at unsuccessful examples of what others have done and not do that. These are some public relations examples of brands that could have used some help with their PR strategy:
Greenpeace vs. Nestlé
This noteworthy public affairs fiasco involved Greenpeace’s successful awareness campaign criticizing Nestlé for a lack of social and ecological responsibility. Nestlé responded by trying to ban Greenpeace’s video — which, it seems, just made it a bigger story. Consumers wanted to know if Nestlé products contained palm oil sourced from Indonesia via forest clearing practices that killed orangutans and other creatures, but Nestlé’s initial denials were less than convincing.
Nestlé eventually established a goal of only using sustainably sourced palm oil, but the whole ordeal hurt their public perception. An effective crisis management strategy would have taken the time to investigate Greenpeace’s claim and responded with a clear answer before announcing changes to alleviate the issue.
Two Ks Are Enough
Making and selling products in an environmentally sustainable way can be a major challenge, but not all PR blunders are as complex. Sometimes PR teams just don’t think things through.
To be fair, it’s unlikely this Krispy Kreme location hired PR professionals to promote their “Krispy Kreme Klub” and their “KKK Wednesdays.” It’s never a good idea to use the same branding as a racist, terrorist organization, but hey, they’re not the first to have made this mistake.
Black Lives Matter, Featuring Kendall Jenner
While some brands screw up by not thinking about racial sensitivity, others overthink it. In 2017, Black Lives Matter protests were in the news. Pepsi responded with a campaign showing how Kendall Jenner can calm down angry crowds … with Pepsi.
This annoyed and offended people across the political spectrum. Many accused Pepsi of trying to capitalize on serious social issues and the cola company quickly pulled the ad off the air.
Best Ways To Track and Manage PR
How do you know if you’re running an effective PR campaign? Here are some important metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that can tell you about the efficacy of your PR effort:
- Impressions: Return on investment for PR is difficult to quantify. There are lots of metrics out there and some are vanity metrics — statistics that might look good on the PR agency running your campaign, but that don’t translate into sales. Impressions can be one of these metrics, but they’re also invariably important. For any PR campaign to succeed, people must notice it. Getting a lot of views, likes, shares or other positive social media engagement for a press release you’ve posted online is a good start.
- Website traffic: Has website traffic increased significantly since that press release? Can you attribute that traffic to your recent campaign? Then your public relations strategy appears to be working.
- Click-through rate: Once people are on your site, do they leave right away? Or do they click on links, including calls to action? The click-through rate is an important KPI, but keep in mind that factors beyond your PR strategy can affect this metric.
- Media coverage: If the media is talking about you, then the public is probably talking about you. Earned media is often the best kind of coverage — provided it’s positive. This is when media outlets discuss your campaign, brand or product without you paying them to do so.
- Share of voice (SoV): This measures your share of the total conversations in your industry. For example, if your website’s traffic is much higher than your competitors’, you have a strong SoV.
- Sales: Ultimately, this is what it’s about. The best PR campaigns result in increased sales.
Conveying the Right Message
PR campaigns are all about conveying the best side of your brand to the public. There are so many ways to do this — and so many people who can help — that it’s always worth thinking about different ways to get the right message across.