By Imesha Thushani
We can define public relations as an enhancement of the institutional / personal image.
While a brand expects more than just profit, Public Relations is one of the main tools that helps people /organizations to build goodwill and maintain their brand reputation in the long term.
According to Edward L. Bernays Public relations is;
– Public Awareness
– Motivating the public
– Making the public interact with each other
Accordingly, a brand expects all three of these factors. To create awareness among the people about their brand, to motivate the public on that brand and to make people interact with each other. So the easiest way to accomplish these 3 things is to use systematic public relations.
In advertising, one should always make a payment to place an advertisement. For instance, when it comes to print media, one has to pay half page / quarter page / full page process to place an ad or on TV/Radio one has to pay for air time.
Public Relations, on the other hand does not involve making payments when compared to advertising. PR is called as earned media while newspapers or any other media platform accommodate stories of a particular organization or an individual based on the good relationship with the each other. While advertising is considerably lesser targeted, a press release is highly targeted and are shared with certain platforms to reach the maximum number of target audiences. This is crucial for brand name enhancement and brand familiarity.
There are several advantages of using media contacts as a branding strategy and creating a real connection between your brand and its target audience is one of the many. Using PR in your brand strategy will help you choose the best communication path for your message. With Public relations brands can communicate their messages more clearly and enhance credibility. Public relations also has the potential to instill public confidence in the brand by working towards establishing a reputed image of the brand.
Today, most companies use digital space to enhance PR activities where they can reach a large number of the target audience. However, one should always remember to consider the impact made by the PR activity on the audience instead of focusing only on the number of the audience. A PR consultancy could and should guide the clientele to always make an impact via their messaging to the most narrowed down and focused audience without putting out a message in a haphazard manner.
In conclusion, Public Relations is very important for branding and taking the brand message to the target audiences. Some brands are born great, some achieve greatness on the go and some hire public relations officers to achieve the goals of the branding strategy.
