Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Letter to cousin- What is PR?

Dear Ashley,

Last time I talked with you, you expressed an interest in learning about public relations. Simply put, public relations is the art of establishing a positive relationship between an institution and the public. Both large and small corporations have public relations professionals working for and promoting them.

Public relations is often compared to marketing, and while they are similar, they do have some key differences. Marketing is more about promoting a product or service, while public relations is more about promoting the organization itself. Advertising is also compared with public relations on occasion. The difference there is that advertising is controlled media that is paid for. Public relations differs from advertising because PR professionals provide information such as press releases and media kits to create uncontrolled media content.

When we were talking, you also asked me what public relations professionals write about. I mentioned earlier both press releases and media kits. PR professionals also write things like speeches, public service announcements, newsletters, brochures, and annual reports. It is important for public relations professionals to know how to write well because these are all professional publications. Therefore, bad writing could very well equal bad PR.

Public relations is a rapidly growing profession. Social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are becoming a huge part of Public Relations. These websites are bringing new forms of writing into the public relations profession. Now public service announcements are being simplified and turned into status updates or "tweets". As the world becomes more connected, the public relations profession grows.

I hope that I was able to all your questions.

Sincerely,

Elise Frederickson

6 comments:

  1. Very nicely written letter. It looks like you covered a large part of what public relations is by establishing what public relations professionals do, and how they do it. You included traditional forms of public relations writing (press releases, media kits) and also went into the newer social media forms.

    Adam

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  2. Elise you did a really good job explaining everything about PR. I'm not sure you left much out.

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  3. Elise, your letter was very thorough and easy to understand. I think that your mention of social media was an excellent choice, because that really is the future of PR. Well done.

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  4. Very good info, you have a good understanding about PR.

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  5. Nice letter! I agree with those who have commented already... You mentioning social media I think is important, and shows the edginess of the PR profession.

    Crisis management is also a key part of PR, and I feel is worth mentioning.

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  6. I really enjoyed how you threw marketing in the mix to create a better explanation.

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