★ After -My Perspective

Ladies and Gentlemen; 

YES?

OK. Here we go! 

Alright, so, what are my perspectives of public relations? 

Well, after I had attended a few lectures, I kinda grasped an idea about the introduction of pr. You know, like the beginning stuff about pr → what is pr, what do they do, what skills must they be equipped with and etc. It isn't just about being stressed and working round the clock because PR practitioners actually have various roles and responsibilities to carry out. There are also challenges that PR practitioners will have to face in our current era and they are expected to meet certain criterias to overcome them. Sounds exhausting, yeah? 

The definition of PR:

"Public relations is a leadership and management function that helps achieve organisational objectives, define philosophy, and facilitate organisational change. Practitioners communicate with all relevant internal and external publics to develop positive relationships and to create consistency between organisational goals and societal expectations. Public relations practitioners develop, execute, and evaluate organisational programs that promote the exchange of influence and understanding among an organisation's constituent parts and publics."
                                                                                                        -Lattimore et al., 2012

By being a leadership and management function, it means that PR holds the position in giving orders. They are the ones who layout ideas and organize communication programs and campaigns. PR managers and leaders normally invest most of their time on planning things such as coming up with marketing plans, determining key messages for an organisation's training plan, or coming up with content guidelines for a company's Web page. They are also in charge of building and maintaining the long-term reputation of an organization, helping to increase profit and meeting profit goals, and giving advise to organisations on how to perform responsibly in accordance to the public's interest. 

Seemingly, you might think that PR leaders are the ones in charge and will make all the decisions that leads to change within an organisation. Actually, they do not. But, because of how they consistently oversee and engage with the publics in the organisation's environment, they often acquire information that:

• suggests a need for change.
• point out the direction in which change should take.

The late renowned public relations educator, Scott Cutlip, once declared that the PR practitioner's most important responsibility was to "interpret the public opinion climate to management". Since they understand what the interests of the publics are, they can then help to set up policies, plan strategies, establish philosophies, achieve objectives, accustom to fit changing environments, and strongly compete in markets. 

It is important for PR practitioners to communicate with their internal and external public to build good relationships for long-term purposes. Now, who or what exactly are an organisations internal and external public? 

Internal Public: They are the people from within the same organisation. They are colleagues from other departments who carry the same brand.

External Public: They are people from outside the organisation. Eg: The government, media, community leaders.

A person/community will become a public once the regconise an issue and understand its relevance in them, and then continue to talk about it or even construct a movement to do something about it. PR practitioners who are sharp enough will communicate early with these groups and try to stop the formation of them becoming activists and turning against the organisation. When society learns about an issue, they will begin to automatically express opinions, discuss with others about the issue, and reconcile their opinions with lasting attitudes, values, and group affiliations. Sounds pretty dangerous for PR practitioners as things can go wrong if they don't monitor public opinion properly. 

As mentioned before, a PR practitioner is busy and has no time to waste! Indeed, they have A LOT of work to do and are equipped with skills ranging from designing and editing pictures to writing and doing public speaking. #winliaolo

Some of PR's jobs & responsibilities: 

• research [ getting new info by being knowledgeable in research ]
• counseling/ advising [ counsel bigger issues to reduce damage ]
• government relations [ lobbying to create goodwill with the government ]
• investor relations 
• development/ fund-raising
• issues management
• media relations
• public affairs [also dealing with the gov, but is meant more for those in corporate sector ]
• community relations [ dealing with the community at large. eg: helping schools, fundraising ]
• employee relations [ internal relations. Eg: informing employees about benefits or how they     can contribute to the company etc. ]
• publicity [ create awareness by promoting ]
• marketing communication 
• promotion [ discounts ]

How does PR function in large organisations? 
Normally, the PR function will be led by a vice president who is the BOSS of developing overall policies. Large organisations would also incorporate other pr managers at both CORPORATE and DIVISION levels, and they may also employ other minions (pr specialists) to carry out writing work, research work, or even be representatives to the media. 

What about the smaller organisations? 
It's quite sad for a pr person to be working in a small organisation because he/she (one person) has to be responsible for handling ALL PR activities. Kesiannya.

For PR counseling firms, they have separations of different practice areas such as financial services, health care etc. Also, they consist of functional specialists who manages the corporate culture change or even the coordination of content on the Web.

PR's Fuctions :

1. Programming [ analyzing problems and opportunities, defining goals, defining the publics, executing activities.]
2. Relationships [ build relationships to strengthen an organisation's connection with their internal and external groups. ]
3. Writing & Editing [ printed word is vital in creating management communications. ]
4. Information Dissemination [ relevant for PR practitioners to share information. It can even be shared via social media.]
5. Production [ PR practitioners need to possess the expertise of art, layout, photography, etc including the background info of it all. ]
6. Special Events [ Used to gain attention and acceptance. Requires attentive planning. ]
7. Speaking [ Public speaking skills pose as an advantage because face-to-face communication is important. ]
8. Research and Evaluation [ They need to research plenty of different topics including reviewing library materials, databases, and Websites. Evaluation can be conducted in the form of surveys or opinion research. ]

In summary, PR is a very diversified area that can be found in almost every industry. I mean, hey, everyone needs PR now since competition for advertising and exposure is high. With the help of excellent communication skills and the ability to build good relationships between an organisation and their publics from PR practitioners, companies can afford to compete strongly amongst themselves in the market. 

Those companies should really thank their PR team for working so hard...

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