10

PR-management

Class 4

PR Services

1. Main areas of activity for PR professionals

2. Services offered by PR agencies

3. Communication agencies and their role in establishing and maintaining successful public relations

4. Press and its role in establishing and maintaining successful public relations

5. Television and its role in establishing and maintaining successful public relations

6. Internet and its role in establishing and maintaining public relations

7. Public speeches/presentations

LECTURE. PUBLIC RELATIONS PUBLICS

This lecture defines the term “public” as it is used in public relations; names and describes the different kinds of publics; lists the kinds of information that practitioners should gather about each public; identifies and describes the traditional publics in public relations.

In the last decade or so, business writers have filled the shelves with books on customer service and personal success in sales. The books and training programs focus on the customer and on the company’s ability to meet their needs and close the sale. While customers are obviously important (since they buy the products and services the company sells) it may be surprising to learn that from a PR perspective, customers are the middle of the list of the "publics" to use a PR term of interest to the organization.

The company needs a net that can capture the opinions of other audiences including the company’s employees (or potential employees), community leaders, opinion leaders, stockholders, regulatory officials, and elected officials.

A public is any group whose members have a common interest or common values in a particular situation. A political party can be a public. Upper-level managers in a corporation can be a public.

The word “stakeholder” often substitutes for the word “public,” but the two words aren’t interchangeable. Some publics may have no connection with the organization that a public relations practitioner represents. A stakeholder, or stakeholder group, has a stake, or an interest, in an organization or issue that potentially involves the organization. For any given organization, then, all stakeholder groups are publics – but not all publics are stakeholders.

It is impossible to count all the public. So which publics matter in public relations? With which publics do we build and manage values-driven relationships? Certain publics become important to an organization as its values and value-based goals interact with the environment. Those publics become stakeholders. For example, to fulfill the goal of being a clean, attractive facility, the hospital must have a good relationship with its custodians. The hospital needs to understand the values of the custodians – such as fair wages – to make that relationship work. As an organization’s values interact with the values of different publics, relationships – good or bad – are born. In fact, if we know the specific values-driven goals of an organization and we know the environment in which it operates, we can predict with some accuracy the essential relationships that can help the organization attain its goals.

Why do organizations need relationships with different publics? The answer can be derived from resource dependency theory, which consists of three main beliefs:

1. To fulfill their values, organizations need resources, such as raw materials and people to work for the organization.

2. Some of key resources are not controlled by organizations.

3. To acquire those key resources, organizations must build productive relationships with the publics that control the resources.

Resource dependency theory tells us that, first and foremost, public relations practitioners must build relationships with publics that possess resources organizations need to fulfill their values-driven goals.

Resource dependency theory can even help determine which publics will receive most of the relationship-management efforts. Clearly, the most important publics are those that possess the resources the organization needs the most.

Public relations activities are directed to an organization’s publics, groups of people with something in common. While the publics will include the company’s target markets – consumers who currently or could potentially buy the company’s products or services – the company’s publics also include other influential groups.

Try to identify the company’s publics because, individually and collectively, they can make a big difference in the success of the company’s business.

To take the example of the hospital again. A hospital’s customers are its patients, and the hospital’s mission is to do the best it can for the individuals in its care. In order to achieve this goal, the hospital has to strategically target and communicate with many other publics, sometimes referred to as its stakeholders (groups who have a stake in the hospital’s success).

A hospital’s internal and external publics or stakeholders would include:

• Consumers – past, present and prospective patients

• Family and friends of patients

• Employees, including various categories of the hospital’s administrative, medical and maintenance staff

• Doctors and other professionals affiliated with the hospital

• Volunteers (those who help patients and those who help with fundraising)

• Board of Directors

• Donors

• Investors

• Neighborhood residents and businesses

• Government officials – local, regional and national

• Professional associations

• Vendors selling services and products to the hospital

• Media that would cover hospital issues

The company knows that it must attract new customers while keeping the company’s current ones through repeat business. The company should, however, identify and remember other publics: groups that may never use the company’s services or buy the company’s products but who could refer business to the company; and groups whose abilities, dedication or influence keep the company’s business viable.

Publics may be as impossible to count as the stars, but, like the stars, they can be grouped into categories, including

• Traditional and nontraditional publics

• Latent, aware, and active publics

• Intervening publics

• Primary and secondary publics

• Internal and external publics

• Domestic and international publics

Traditional publics are groups with which organizations have ongoing, long-term relationships. Traditional publics include employees, news media, governments, investors, customers, multicultural community groups, and constituents (voters).

Non-traditional publics are groups that usually are unfamiliar to an organization. They can be hard to study and may lead to some innovative relationship-building strategies. They can be new and challenging, but it’s possible that one day they’ll become traditional publics.

Traditional can be a misleading word. A group that is a traditional public for one organization might be a nontraditional public for another. Many organizations, however, do have long-term relationships with well-established traditional publics, including employees, the news media, governments, investors, consumers, multicultural community groups, constituents (voters), and businesses.

Employees are often the most important publics in public relations. If the organization’s employees aren’t on the organization’s side, it doesn’t matter how good the organization’s relations with other publics are. So it’s good news that organizations are focusing on this key public.

Some very important members of the news media are the so-called gatekeepers: editors or producers who decide which stories to include and which stories to reject. Without the consent of the gatekeepers, public relations practitioners cannot use the news media as intervening publics. Gatekeepers value news that serves the interests of their audiences. If public relations practitioners supply that kind of audience-focused news, they should have productive relationships with the gatekeepers of the news media.

You’ve probably heard that the nine most feared words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Government workers actually can help public relations practitioners by providing information and interpreting legislation. But they can also harm a practitioner’s organization by adopting unfavorable legislation or regulations.

Major media can be used for public relations purposes. Each of the media has different strengths for different types of communication. Public relations practitioners must be careful to use the appropriate media (or, sometimes, single medium) for each public relations campaign.

Print media are the most effective for delivering a message that requires absorption of details and contemplation by receivers. Printed matter can be read repeatedly and kept for reference. Newspapers are fast and have the most wide-spread impact of the print outlets. Magazines, although slower, are better for reaching special-interest audiences. They often deal with subjects at greater length and in greater depth than is possible in a daily newspaper. Books take even longer but can generate strong impact over time. Increasingly, traditional media primarily appeals to older or more highly educated audiences. Newspapers and magazines are commercial institutions that depend heavily on advertising for their income.

Television has the strongest emotional impact of all media. Its visual power makes situations seem close to the viewer. The vividness and personality of the TV communicator creates an influence that print media cannot match. Television currently has the largest and broadest audience. Popular culture can have a profound effect on public perceptions and attitudes. Product placement is an example of public relations at work in the motion picture industry. Sponsored films can also be effective public relations tools.

Radio’s greatest advantages are flexibility and the ability to reach specific target audiences. Messages can be prepared for and broadcast on radio more rapidly than on television, and at a much lower cost. Radio reaches a variety of audiences through such types of programming as newscasts, community calendars or events, talk shows, and public service announcements. It can be an especially effective medium for reaching a large audience in a crisis or an emergency. Because there are nine times as many radio stations as TV stations, audience exposure is easier to obtain, but the audiences reached are smaller.

Use of online media, once thought of as a supplemental method of reaching a generally well-educated, relatively affluent audience, is expanding exponentially. The Internet and World Wide Web provide an opportunity for public relations practitioners to communicate directly with audiences without the filter of editors and journalists. Young people are easily targeted through online media because they spend more time in front of a computer than other groups, and the medium is ingrained in their lifestyle and behavioral pattern. Online news sources are growing in stature, especially when big stories are breaking and developing throughout the workday. In conflict or crisis situations, online media are becoming more important in terms of diffusion of stories and public relations professionals should understand the strengths and limitations of the media. In the foreseeable future, it is likely that electronic media delivery systems, such as the Internet and wireless communications, will overtake print media and even television as the primary source of information.

Public relations scholars often categorize publics as latent, aware, and active publics. A latent public is a group whose values have come into contact with the values of the organization, but whose members haven’t yet realized it; the members of that public are not yet aware of the relationship. An aware public is a group whose members are aware of the intersection of their values with those of the organization but haven’t organized any kind of response to the relationship. An active public, however, not only recognizes the relationship between itself and the organization but is also working to manage that relationship on its own terms.

In public relations, any public that helps the organization to send a message to another public, is called an intervening public.

Publics can also be divided into primary publics and secondary publics. If a public can affect the organization’s pursuit of its goals, that public is definitely a primary public – a public of great importance. Secondary publics are also important. The organization wants to have a good relationship with them, but their ability to affect the organization’s pursuit of its goals is minimal. Because resources such as time and money are scarce, public relations practitioners spend most of their time building and managing relations with primary publics. If resources permit, they also build and manage relationships with secondary publics.

Publics are either external publics or internal publics; that is, either they are inside the organization or outside it. Sometimes, however, the line between internal and external is not clearly drawn.

Last but not least, publics are either domestic publics or international publics. Domestic publics are those within the organization’s own country. Increasingly, public relations practitioners are dealing with international publics.

To manage a productive relationship with a public, the organization must be able to answer seven questions about it:

1. How much can the public influence the organization’s ability to achieve its goals?

In other words, is the public a primary public or a secondary public? As much as public relations practitioners like to have positive, well-maintained relationships with every public, that ideal is simply too impractical; it would stretch resources far too thin. Public relations practitioners should spell the difference between success and failure for their organizations.

2. What is the public’s stake, or value, in its relationship with the organization?

A relationship between a public and an organization is born when values intersect. What values does the public hold that have brought it into contact with the organization? For example, investors value steady increases in the price of the stock they own. Customers value getting their money’s worth. Employees value, among other things, interesting work and good salaries. Identifying the value or values a public seeks to realize in its relationship with the organization is one of the most important things the organization can do in public relations. It allows the organization to explore the possibility of a relationship in which both sides win: the public’s values can be recognized and honored, and the organization can achieve its goal for the relationship

3. Who are the opinion leaders and decision makers for the public?

Members of a public turn to opinion leaders for advice and leadership. Stockholders, for example, often turn to successful investment analysts for advice. Employees turn to union leaders or trusted supervisors. If the organization can identify the opinion leaders of a public, perhaps the organization can build a relationship with them that will strengthen the relationship with the whole public. However, not every public has well-defined, easily identifiable opinion leaders. For example, who are the opinion leaders for the millions of teenagers using Internet chat rooms?

Decision makers are people who have the authority to dictate actions and establish policies for publics. Some publics have easily identifiable decision makers. For example, decision makers for news media are the editors, publishers, directors, and producers who oversee the content of newspapers, magazines, radio programs, television programs, or web sites. Some publics don’t have easily identifiable decision makers. Latent publics or aware publics (as opposed to active publics) may be only loosely organized at best. For example, the company wants to improve its relationship with local alternative rock musicians. Who are the decision makers for that diverse group? Perhaps the best the company can do is to point to opinion leaders for the targeted public.