Friday 11 December 2015

Is Public Relations really necessary?

Many times i have wondered how so many companies survive in this world of continous competition and the constant innovations . Then i decided to read further to find out how effective good relationship with customers, clients and even employees go a long way to building the reputation of a company. I did not just find out that a sucessful company works well with a good plan, but with well trained and motivated personnel.

Public relations according to the Public Relations News is that "management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest, and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance". Importantly, the way people view an organization is based on the level of interaction (direct & indirect) that the organization has with the public which of course should be of public interest. 

Public Relations is broad in its sense and many scholars have referred to it as customer relationship, public affairs, corporate communications, community relations, investor relations, public press conferences, media events, internal communications and crisis communications, there are also some important facets of PR which arent usually seen until they are "seen". these include the behind - the- scene activities that a PR professional is involved in before brought about in the public place. some of which include- press releases, organizing trainings and computation of various prospective contacts for such events. A dear friend once asked if it was in the place of a PR professional/ firm to lobby for his articles and ideas to be published and i replied, hell yes! 

Understanding that all the public wants to hear is a good story links up to the PR professional knowing that PR is telling a good story and also taking into consideration ETHICS. The better tuned the story, the more interested the public is in that story and the true meaning of PR defined. Great public Relations practice is when the public see a company as a partner that knows their needs. In Public relations, your target audience should always be defined to allow for smooth comunication with them. this could also lead to the selection of the respective media to communicate such information.  

Organizations would spend a whole lot to put their company in good standing with the public. Public Relations is only cost effective and  easily measured if it is aimed at a particular target market. 



Ebahi Ajayi is a graduate of Mass Communication (Bsc.) from The Redeemers' University Ogun State Nigeria and a graduate of Advertisig and Public Relations Management (Msc.) from the De Montfort University, Leicester. For further information and enquiries, please contact me directly on ebahi.ajayi@gmail.com