1/23What Is Modern Public Relations?

15definitions From Experienced PR Practitioners

2/23

Every organization, no matter how large or small, ultimately depends on its reputation for survival

and success.

What does it mean today?

3/23

Different Organizations, Different PR Definitions

4/23

IPR puts it simply:

Public relations (PR) is the way

organizations, companies and individuals

communicate with the public and media.

A PR specialist communicates with

the target audience directly or indirectly

through media with an aim to create

and maintain a positive image and create

a strong relationship with the audience.

Examples include press releases,

newsletters, public appearances, etc.

as well as utilization of the world wide web.

IPR

5/23

In 1982, the PRSA National Assembly adopted this definition: “Public relations helps an organization

and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

6/23

In 2011/12, PRSA spearheaded

an international project aimed at updating

the definition of public relations. It included

a crowdsourcing campaign and a public

vote that resulted in the following:

Public relations is a strategic

communication process that builds

mutually beneficial relationships between

organizations and their publics.

7/23

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) stresses a different aspect of public

relations. It underlines that every organization, no matter how large or small, ultimately

depends on its reputation for survival and success. And in today’s competitive market,

reputation can be a company’s biggest asset – the thing that makes you stand out from

the crowd and gives you a competitive edge. Effective PR – we read in CIPR statement –

can help manage reputation by communicating and building good relationships with all

organization stakeholders.

8/23

Public Relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what

others say about you.

Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning

understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned

and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding

between an organisation and its publics.”

9/23

The main definition of public relations

used by the PRIA is almost the same.

However, with the massive change in the

communication process brought about

by the information era, public relations –

explains the PRIA on its website – could be

easily described as:

The management function which evaluates

public attitudes, identifies the policies

and procedures of an individual

or an organisation with the public

interest, and plans and executes

a programme of action to earn public

understanding and acceptance.

10/23

What Does Public Relations Mean to PR Practitioners?

11/23

In 2006, for me, it was simply about building and managing

a brand’s reputation – how companies or individuals are

perceived, how they perceive themselves and how any

disconnect between the two can be addressed. This relied

heavily on strong media relations and resulted in positive

coverage in newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio. Job done.

In 2016, reputations are still at the heart of PR, but the road is

longer and has many more twists and turns. Today, for me, PR

is about the art of communicating, creating debate, shaping

personalities, influencer relationships, producing quality

content, and owning the conversation. We also can’t ignore the

rising importance of search engine optimization as an objective

in our PR campaigns.

danielle hibbert

Senior Project Manager

at Belfast-based

consumer PR agency Clearbox

12/23

Public relations is communication of an intended message

that aims to result in a shift of audience’s attitude (towards a

person, brand, event, etc.).

rafał sałak

Communications Lead

at Prowly

13/23

For me the definition of PR is reputation management.

It’s ensuring that your brand has a clear message and

successful PR is ensuring that message is effectively

represented and interpreted to the right audience. Effective

PR is about being proactive, not just reactive to situations or

brand/business activity. With the rise of PESO (Paid, Earned,

Shared and Owned), PR’s need to focus on content with

transparency is key.jordan townley

PR & CSR Specialist

at PageGroup

14/23 PR is the art of convincing others (consumers, media, influencers,

etc.) of a company, brand, or product’s relevance, rather than

simply telling them. PR agencies have always worked to provide

their clients with reasons to be talked about and to help them

identify and communicate a purpose in people’s lives. It’s been

the only way to grab the audience’s attention without paying for it.

And in a rapidly evolving digital world, this is what consumers are

demanding more and more. They have become disillusioned with

companies who have crumbled in the face of social and digital

transparency and are now proactively choosing brands that are

authentically on their side. They want brands with a purpose,

brands that give customers good and relevant reasons to choose

them. And that’s why PR is becoming an increasingly powerful

discipline – because we’ve been doing just that for years.

charlie de mierre

Creative Director

at Porter Novelli London

15/23

Public relations is the practice of understanding the purpose

of an organization and its relationships within society. It is

the planned and sustained activity of engagement between

these two parties to influence behavior change, and build

mutual understanding and trust. Engagement between an

organization and its publics is the core of public relations

practice. It is a two-way process by which an organization

communicates with its publics, and vice versa.stephen waddington

Chief Engagement Officer

at Ketchum

16/23

Public relations is the act of spreading awareness on behalf

of a company, product, brand, or individual. Publicists do

this for their clients by garnering media coverage, creating

partnerships, owned content strategy, etc.

kristen tischhauser

Managing Partner

at talkTECH

17/23

Public relations: everything that’s done in order to create

or maintain a subject’s public image in a specified target

group. The subject of these activities could be a product, a

company, or its department, an individual or an idea. The

target group could be narrow (for niche products) as well

as very broad (for example a whole social group). PR is

carried out with various tools – both traditional, like media

relations, advocacy, or employer branding, and modern,

like social media relations.grzegorz miller

Blogger

at Social-pr.pl

18/23

We are living in an era when huge amounts of information

are available wherever we are and whatever we do. Radio,

television, printed press, social media, blogs, internet

portals – a whole range of different content available at our

fingertips twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. At

the same time, a human being is a cognitive miser, as first

described by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor in 1991. One is

only capable of learning, understanding, and using a small

portion of information that he or she is bombarded with.

It is at the confluence of this flood of information and the

human mind that a place for PR exists. To me, PR is the

ability to attract the attention of selected audiences through

strategic and tactical spreading of key messages.

filip kochan

Communications Officer,

Poland and the Baltics,

World Bank

19/23

PR is a set of tools we use in our everyday work to achieve

the above-mentioned goal. Regardless of the press

release, event, interview, blog, or another tool employed by

the communication professional, PR requires the building

of relationships with your audiences or transmitters of your

messages. An investment in building these relationships is

essential for bringing the highest returns in the PR world.

...

filip kochan

Communications Officer,

Poland and the Baltics,

World Bank

20/23

Public relations is the art of creating lasting relationships,

based on respect and truth, between interdependent

entities existing in the public domain. PR has nothing to do

with manipulation, twisting the reality, smearing competitors

or political opponents, or praising made up qualities of

products, services, parties, or public figures. PR teaches you

the principles of correct exchange of information between

individuals and companies.grzegorz szczepański

CEO

at Hill+Knowlton Strategies Poland,

ZFPR

21/23

PR isn’t just about the relations with the outside world. Ask

yourself: why do you need to have those relationships? Why

and how will you nurture them? What are your goals? And

for every product there’s just one ultimate goal: delivering

value and making revenue.

PR is about identifying the right people/organizations

with whom you want to establish those relationships, and

developing the right communication and cooperation

models on how to achieve your business goals via them.vlad shvets

Growth Hacker

at Fogger

22/23

By the book: PR is a feature of the management which

consists of maintaining favorable relations with everyone

surrounding the company, which determines its success or

failure.

From my professional and life experience: everything that

we do or say is Public Relations.

To phrase it differently: PR is a never-ending story full of

nuances, amazing characters and unexpected plot twists.

PR turns companies into heroes and heroes into lovebrands.

Always opened on the most recent page and ready to take

you to the unexpected.

olka kaźmierczak

fashion PR expert,

founder of Fashion PR Talks academy

23/23

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