What is PR?
Public Relations is creating and maintaining the public image of a client, whether it’s a group, person, or company. Clients come to an agency, and work with the PR team as a collective to figure out what kind of public image they want to attain. As someone in public relations, it’s your job to keep that client’s favorable image maintained and clean.
What Does PR Entail?
There are multiple ways to maintain a customer’s image. For example, helping a client with damage control, helping find other people and companies in the industry to collaborate with, planning events, helping design phrases, advertisements, posts, etc. It’s also important to know how your client wants to grow and which social media platform they’ll be most successful. With the constantly evolving market today, the approach of public relations and advertising has begun to focus on digital engagement, making social media platforms crucial for connectivity today. While earning my Hubspot Certification in Digital Marketing (Posted in my about me), I learned how necessary it is to know your client company better than they do. Your client may want to focus primarily on Twitter, but the company’s content may thrive better on Instagram. For example, companies and brands that post a lot of video content will do significantly better on TikTok or posting reels on Instagram. Ones that livestream would move their focus to Facebook live.
Client Connection
The most important part of working with a client is knowing that client better than they know themselves. Seems hard to do, right? This is, in a sense, the easiest yet most crucial part. The client is going to convey that they have a problem and explain what they think that problem is. Although the client assumes they know, they’re stuck in their own bias’ and can’t look at the company in a way others do. That’s where the PR team steps in and does what the client cannot. Through deep research on our clients social media presence, reviews, news, etc, we can evaluate what is really going on with the client and can conduct a campaign as to how we can solve it.
So how has social media brought massive change to Public Relations and Advertising? Companies are constantly using social media influencers to promote their products. With the rise of TikTok, a social media platform made up of short videos anybody can create, it’s become even easier than ever to generate a massive following and become an influencer. People love to listen to famous people they look up to for products, advice, etc. For example, Serena Williams, world’s best tennis player with over 15 million followers on instagram, is a promoter for brands such as Nike, Beats by Dre, and multiple others. Serena has these promotions because the companies know she holds enough power to convince people to shop with those brands. Multiple fitness pages on TikTok have been sponsored by different pre-workout brands, protein brands, clothing companies, and so much more. The followers of these pages see them using or wearing these products since they look up to them so much. Content creators benefit from promoting the brand, the PR team benefits from how well the public image of the company is doing and how well it’s getting known, and the company is not only maintaining that image but also making money from the content creator convincing others to buy the product.
Coming Full Circle
As one can see, the public relations industry is still growing in ways that never would’ve been expected twenty years ago. It’s more than just maintaining the client’s image. Helping the clients grow, be successful and help them achieve what kind of company they want to be is truly what it is about. With social media, it’s easier than ever to promote the client and help them be as successful as they can. With different platforms gaining popularity, it’s important to pay attention to what’s growing in the social media world.
