Public Relation is a Communication Business and the Ideal Practitioner is a People’s Person
Introduction
Public relation involves managing information that flows between an organization and a target segment of the public. Through public relation, an organization gets exposure to the public by the use of topics of interest to the public. The main focus or aim of public relation therefore is to persuade the public, stakeholders and interested parties of an organization to develop a certain perception about the organization, its products, decisions, management and leadership. This implies that public relations is basically involves business and corporate communication. The success and failure of businesses, corporate, and other organizations depend on the public. It is for this reason that the good relationship between organizations and the public has to be sustained. The practitioners of public relations are required to possess some skills that go in line with business and corporate communication. They basically have to be a people’s person. Public relation therefore is a communication business and the ideal practitioner is a people’s persons.
Rawlins and Stoker (2005) present the historical development of the term publicity. Since history, businesses and politics have become open to public scrutiny. This has made practitioners in public relation to figure out ways of shaping the opinion of the public. Business leaders would therefore embrace publicity and use the power of information to help shape public opinion on matters pertaining to their organization. In order for organization and the public to have mutual adaptation, then public relation communication has to be used. The activities of public relation include: publicity events, talk shows, books and other forms of writing, web bogs, direct communication to the audience, newsletters, communication through mass media, collateral literature, speech, and through social media among many others.
All these activities of public relation involve some form of communication where information is sent to a specific target audience. With businesses and corporate, the information presented to the public would regard their operational matters, products, and financial performances. In both business and politics there certain times when negative information or rumors can spread due to the presence of competition. Public relation in such cases will focus on responding to the crisis and trying to undo the negative perceptions that the public could possibly have developed from the rumors. With industries, public relations will also require that communication of vital information be made to trade unions to persuading them to have a certain view point on the relationship between workers and the industry. Government departments also engage in public relations in order to influence the process of policy making.
Financial public relation is specifically carried out to enable corporations increase their market value. This is particularly important for organizations that are listed in stock exchange markets. Communication therefore is intended to persuade financial press, financial columnists, private and institutional investors, financial analysts, and stockbrokers. The information relayed is basically on financial performance of the corporation. Communication in financial public relation attempts to create and sustain loyalty among stakeholder to the financial product. In this way, the share value of the company can be increased or at least maintained at a desirable level. The measures that can be used measure the effectiveness of financial public relation include aspects like credit rating of an organization, stability of its shares, demand of its shares, and the share value.
Public relations and its entire dimension are procedural. The process aims at attempting to make meaning using forms of communication strategically to the public. As earlier stated, the public plays a critical role in the success or failure of an organization. The messages portrayed to the public therefore are the most important things to consider while engaging in PR. The messages have to be able to sway people’s perceptions and make them believe that the organization has the interest of the public at heart. During the process of decision making in organizations, both external and internal factors have to be accounted for. Through public relations communication, the negative consequences of these decisions are mitigated or reduced.
Success in public relations entirely depends on integrating communication. Integrated communication is strategic in nature and ensures that the organization gets its desirable output. This specifically crucial in cases of crisis response where organizations are trying to undo any damages caused by rumors or negative accusations. Communication is therefore not just a common aspect of public relations. However communication needs to be strategic in nature. The approach used to relay any information to the public is one that is less offensive.
Communication in public relation is considered to similar to communication in advertising where the massage is sent to the end user. The similarity comes with the nature of information to be sent. Clarity is of the essence while relaying the message. The public need not to experience difficulties in decoding the messages or interpreting them. The process of communication involves the sender encoding the message and sending it through a medium to the receiver, who is required to decode the message. The practitioners in this case are the senders of the message and the public is the receiver. The message therefore has to be relayed in a simpler way to enable the receiver act in the expected desirable manner.
According to Spinks and Wells (1998), the message communicated in public relations, has several components. These components include: developing an idea in the senders mind, coding the idea appropriately, selecting a medium to send the encoded idea, decoding the idea by the receiver, the receiver developing the idea in their minds.
Practitioners in public relations are of high caliber. They have the ability to feed the public with strategic information while making consultations with the management and leadership of organizations. The practitioners have the ability to plan what information will go to the public, how the information will be relayed without causing damage, and when is the appropriate time to relay the information? Basically, practitioners are critical thinkers. They weigh situations before informing the public. With strategic planning in public relations, there is prospect of getting desirable output.
Selecting practitioners to fill the post of public relation personnel in any organization needs to take into account some important characteristics and skills of the prospective individual. Apart from having stable individual characteristics, there are other dimensions of behavior that need to be displayed by the practitioners. Basically practitioners are a people’s person. Networking is a critical aspect that is mandatory for every practitioner. This entails the ability of the individual to be able to develop and maintain casual relationships or informal interpersonal relationships with other people. Networking is a fundamental characteristic for practitioners to possess since it helps in certain critical situations. Kaplan (1984) identified that networking is helpful in making PR management effective.
Another important characteristic for practitioners to be a people’s person is the ability to communicate effectively. Communication is wide and it involves oral, written and internet enabled communication. Writing skill is specifically professional forms of writing. They include the ability to write documents such as memos, letters, and press releases. Despite the fact that electronic communication especially social media and emailing has marred the quality in written forms of communication, practitioners are expected to be able to adjust to professionalism especially when handling official communication. Most companies today use social media as a means to maintain their public relations. Professionalism still needs to be maintained when communicating through social media.
Apart from written communication prowess, practitioners are also required to be able to express themselves orally. Practitioners need to have the ability to articulate their thoughts and represent the perception and philosophy of their organization confidently before people. In most cases, it is the public relation people who are expected to make speeches on behalf of an organization during internal or external crisis response. Any information relating to public relation that needs to be relayed will have to be done by the PR practitioner. Therefore making the communication of the information effective needs an individual with a combination of communication skills including confidence of making speech before cameras and before people.
Being a people’s person also requires the ability to use social media and any other internet enabled communication. The practitioners have to familiarize with internet communication tools such as blogs, and search engines, and social media. There is a whole range of the public who can easily be reached through the use of internet enabled communication tools. With communication skills, simplicity is the most emphasized. PR practitioners are required to communicate to all kinds of audiences. The audiences include: business and corporate executives both in the c level management and mid level management, normal employees, and the general public. The information communicated needs to be simple so that all these audiences can be able to understand.
Conclusion
The aim of public relation as discussed in the paper is to persuade the public, stakeholders and interested parties of an organization to develop a certain perception about the organization, its products, decisions, management and leadership. This process involves communicating a message to the public implying that it is a communication business. The practitioners of public relation are therefore expected to have a people’s person characteristic with good interpersonal and communication skills.
They must possess the ability to inform internal and external audiences persuasively and at the same time being able to make consultations with the management.
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