What is Public Relations?
Public Relations is an area concerned with the public image of businesses, celebrities, politicians, organizations, etc. The field of Public Relations is found within the broader subject of Communications. A PR firm may be responsible for managing communication between an organization and its audiences, or the public. A PR Firm is valuable to a company or organization because it can provide more exposure to audiences. By using popular topics and news items, Public Relations can provide endorsements and pique interest amongst the public. Some public relations activities may include social media, employee communication, media exposure, and speaking at conferences. You may wonder why employee communication would be considered a type of public relations. However, PR is important in building rapport with employees. The way an employee perceives a company is just as important as how customers perceive a company. Employees are often the spokespeople that represent an organization or company, and their interactions with the public affect how the company is portrayed. Marketing public relations deal with publicity. They work to spread information, and increase public awareness of a product, person, or company. Social media is often employed to achieve this. The use of twitter allows companies to constantly give updates and short messages to a wide variety of people instantly. Public relations and publicity may also be achieved through the use of Facebook. Any company can create a Facebook fan page, where users can become members and show their interest or appreciation. Social networking sites are especially helpful because they allow other users to find out about a company that might otherwise be obscure and go unnoticed. Almost all companies and organizations that are interested in how they are perceived have some kind of marketing public relations or utilize a PR firm.