Do you take
core strength of public relations into account as you manage those communications tactics?Because if you don’t, you’re missing sweet-spot of public relations. The communications tactics you employ must work together to create desired behavioral change in certain groups of people important to success of your organization. In end, a sound public relations strategy combined with effective tactics leads directly to bottom line – perceptions altered, behaviors modified, employer/ client satisfied.
The fact is that NO organization – business, non-profit or public sector – can succeed today unless behaviors of its most important audiences are in-sync with organization’s objectives.
For your organization, that means public relations professionals must modify somebody’s behavior if they are to help hit your objective and earn a paycheck – everything else is a means to that end.
Which is why, when public relations goes on to successfully create, change or reinforce public opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-action those people whose behaviors affect organization, it accomplishes its mission.
How can we be so certain? Question: how can you measure results of an activity more accurately than when you clearly achieve goal you set at beginning of that activity? You can’t. It’s pure success when you meet that goal.
Public relations is no different. The client/employer wants our help in altering counterproductive perceptions among key audiences which almost always change behaviors in a way that helps him or her get to where they want to be.
Now, to achieve that goal, public relations practitioners must be skilled in many tactical disciplines. Everything from media relations, public speaking and a dozen kinds of writing to financial communications, special events, issue tracking and crisis management, to name just a few.
But too often, tendency is to see little beyond a tactic’s immediate impact. For example, a speech and how it was received, a news release and how it was picked up and presented in a newspaper or on TV, or a special event and audience’s reaction.
Of course those reactions are understandable and shouldn’t be lightly dismissed. But question also must be asked, to what end are we applying those tactics?
Ask yourself this question: do we employ public relations tactics for sheer pleasure of writing news releases, running special events, doing surveys or booking speeches? Obviously, answer is no. We employ public relations so that, at end of day, somebody’s behavior gets modified.
