What is PR?

By Matthew Wendler

The definition of PR is tough to pin down. It changes as quickly as publics adopt new communication media. It can take an entire career in the field to develop a full understanding of what PR is, and then the whole industry can change overnight. To stay on top of things it is necessary to stay educated.

The Public Relations Society of America crafted a modernized definition of “public relations” in 2012. This definition was the result of an international crowdsourcing campaign:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

So what does that mean?

The modernized definition emphasizes that PR is a communication process. Antiquated definitions referred to PR as a “management function”. In the past, communications from organizations were released in a controlled, one-directional manner. The modernized definition makes it clear that this is no longer the case.

Today publics can communicate with organizations, primarily through social media. One-directional management function communications are still effective, but since publics can now respond to these communications, PR has become a more of back-and-forth dialogue. Effective PR is conducted through a communications process, rather than a single message.

The process of modern PR is strategic in the sense that publics must be reached and engaged at the right time, and in the right place. PR practitioners used to be more concerned with getting their organization’s message out to as wide a public as possible. Again, wide-reaching PR efforts are still effective for some messages and organizations. But today’s PR practitioners must think strategically about how to reach the right audiences with the right message at the right time. It is often more effective for an organization to communicate with a smaller, more engaged public, than a larger disinterested public.

Finally, it is important for the relationships built between organizations and their publics to be mutually beneficial. Communications from organizations should be helpful, authentic, and transparent. Leave the more subtle and nefarious influencing to advertisers.

Follow the SPRA blog to keep up with the changing world of PR.