Speaking of Business: PR: The initials don’t mean ‘press release’

My column in this edition will not be written in the usual format of questions and answers. In responding to Aimee Fitzgerald, APR, president of Fagan Business Communications of Englewood, I asked her to use my column to set the story straight after she commented on my January article regarding public relations. The following are her thoughts on why “Public relations isn’t about publicity.” (Yes, you read it correctly!). Fitzgerald’s response follows:

PR. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not publicity, “free advertising” or even a sales-promotion tool. When business managers think of public relations, they often think the term is synonymous with publicity, or that “PR” stands for “press releases.” Understanding what public relations is — and isn’t — can help a business of any size use the discipline most efficiently for maximum results.

n Developing relationships: The real job of professionals in the communications profession is to assist clients in developing relationships with their “publics,” hence the name, “public relations.” At its core, public relations, when done well, is strategic and forms the base to develop a company’s brand, image and reputation.

Public relations works with the company messaging at the highest level –not just marketing or other functional messaging. It is, therefore, the heart of how a company presents itself to, and communicates with, its publics: investors, customers, employees, business community, vendors, government entities, the news media and any other groups that impact an organization (or that an organization impacts).

* Message simplicity: You’ll know you’ve found a top-level professional when he or she will help your company develop its key messaging at a basic, simple, concise level. That means taking a firm stance, playing devil’s advocate and pushing to get to the core of what your business does without the use of adjectives or promotion, using “just the facts.”

Your public-relations, or corporate-communications, professional will then work with you to implement that basic messaging about what your company does throughout every communications vehicle you use, from e-mail and fax templates to proposals to your Web site. When your company, however small, presents a simple, consistent message in everything it does, the impact on market awareness can be phenomenal.

Businesses will derive the greatest value from the communications function by focusing on integrated messaging throughout their organizations. From outside the organization, even the smallest firm looks pulled together and buttoned down when it presents a simple, consistent message.

* News media relations vs. publicity: On a tactical level, media relations is only one of many functional areas of public relations. It is the long-term process of developing working, news-source-based relationships between members of the news media and people who speak for companies. Publicity, another of the functional areas, is typically celebrity or event-driven and brings attention to a particular person or event for something unusual happening at the moment. For most businesses, publicity has limited opportunity and value.

On a tactical level, editorial news-media relations is only one part of a successful public-relations program. Within editorial news-media relations, only a miniscule portion of the work is involved in writing and issuing news releases.

* “News release:” The origin of the term, “press release,” stems from its long-time reference to print journalism only (press runs, press rooms, etc.). Whether something is called a “press release” or “news release” has nothing to do with the originator of the release.

* News-release content: It is, however, critical to insure that your news release actually contains news, not promotion. And that “news” is news as defined by the reporter or editor. That necessitates a significant amount of research — before you ever write the news release or select to whom you will send it — to determine what each appropriate editor at each appropriate publication considers newsworthy.

Most stories result not from any single news release, but from development of ongoing working relationships between a member of the news media and a company spokesperson that is a news source (not a promotional vehicle).

It is of interest to know that news releases are rarely, if ever, printed or broadcast as-is. News releases are intended to serve as short items that convey essential information, not to tell the whole story or to serve as articles. If reporters or editors see something of interest, they can then follow up for more information as they see fit. Not every piece of news is worthy of a news release, and not every news release will be picked up upon.

Unfortunately, most news releases that go out today do not contain news. Business managers, investors and others who do not understand the news process well often think that a quantity of news releases disguised as promotional vehicles will raise the company’s awareness and build brand. The reality is that public relations has gained an often-justified reputation for unprofessionalism among the news media. Web sites such as www.buzzkiller.net offer a cynical, but helpful and true, view from journalists’ perspectives.

Aimee Fitzgerald, APR, is president of Fagan Business Communications of Englewood. She can be reached at aimeecolo@aol.com, or (303) 843-9840.

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