Some prevalent myths about public relations!

Modern business cannot work without public relations. It is an important part of business strategy, as it helps target customers in ethical ways.

Building a good rapport in front of customers, helps improve brand visibility, which is possible by help of public relations. Therefore, it is very important to get in touch with Public Relations firm, in order to get paced up in the competition.

Before hiring one, you need to be sure that it is efficient in carrying out brand building process for any business effectively.

In addition to this, you should have no doubts related to PR companies. Here is a look at some common myths about PR management companies:

Negative publicity can be beneficial for business

Over the years, this has been a major misconception amongst people. But, this can prove to be a big mistake! In fact, looking into the growing competition, a single bad thing regarding the business can prove to be fatal. At times, such things can never remove also, which will keep on having adverse effect on the business brand name and sales. Therefore, the underline fact is negative publicity doesn’t do any good for the business.

Only big firms can benefit from PR services

Usually, small business company thinks that only big firms can reap benefits of PR. But this is a hypothetical belief! Even small business can, provided they have taken help of experienced PR company.

Hiring of big PR company is beneficial

There is no doubt that hiring big and popular PR agencies is beneficial, but thinking that only big companies can be effective for business reputation is a fallacy. Smaller companies can reap great benefits for their client’s business reputation, provided you are sure that they have qualified experts to conduct this job task.

PR is all about making contacts

Public relation is basically done to widespread business name in media and audience. But it is not the only part to be played by PR companies. A good campaigning is to be done, if wanting to make their importance feel in mass audience.

There is also a widespread belief that having contacts with media people and journalists prove to be beneficial at times of adverse conditions, but solely contacts cannot do anything good. PR professionals need to present something good in front of people.

So, before you hire any professional company, make sure you are not entangled with any myths and misapprehensions.

How Internet marketing is essential for Public Relations?

Internet marketing is an important part of the public relations. It is used for creating online visibility, increasing awareness about the brand, and possibly selling the product or service. This type of marketing is used to influence the customers who use Internet. Their purchases depend on the online research and the image they get about a brand on the Internet.

Any individual or business’s online reputation matters a lot. That is why PR agencies are focusing a lot on this area of PR, lately. A public relations firm uses different strategies and techniques to meet the requirement of their clients.

Here are some of the components of Internet media that are used by PR firms.

• Blogs – Blogs are one of the most popular online places where people can post, comment and communicate. Usually people make a blog, which is based on a particular topic and other can read the post and comment their opinion. There are video blogs available too. These blogs are very popular because of the honest opinion one can get here. This is why the public relation firms use them for brand awareness.

• Micro Blogging – Micro blogging sites such as Twitter and Tumblr are short version of blogs. Here can post anything from a few text lines to links, images and videos. They are popular because of the quick updates and response from the users. One can get instant popularity or brand awareness through these websites. Customers, who are using some services or product, follow the company or brand on these websites to get latest updates. So having an account here increases the brand’s online visibility.
   
• Social Networks – Social Networking websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and MySpace give the option of uploading and sharing to their users. Users of these networks, share content, images and videos, comment and communicate with their friends. One can create fan pages or groups for the services or products they like. Companies can do direct marketing too through banners and ads etc.
   
• Forums – On these forums, members can post, comment, message and communicate. These forums are usually based on a certain subject. People like to discuss and share their view about various things on these forums. It is a good medium of promotion and getting a response about services or products.

What can a professional PR company do for you?

Some people relate public relation with advertising. Whereas, the fact is that these two are entirely different from each other.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary Public Relations is a way to induce public towards the business for creating its goodwill.

If one thinks of managing rapport of their business on their own, it can turn out to be a daunting task for them. This is where you need someone by your side who can effectively handle PR work for you. This calls for hiring New York PR Firm.

However, before you hire services of PR Company, you need to be clear with some facts related to public relations.

First of all, you should be clear with the fact that public relations and advertising are two class-apart things (not the same thing). Though most people do get confused in these both terms, but in actuality advertising is selling of goods, services and anything else for that matter via paid methods, PR is all about giving exposure of the business amongst targeted audience that does not require any cost to be paid.

After determining the difference between the two, now if you are wondering how this is put into action. Well then, let me explain you that it is the power of media, which help induce targeted audience towards your site.

By telling each and everything to media like your business achievements, signing of major contracts, winning of awards etc. all things which have got huge applauds in the market, that is needed to make visible in front of media. This is most effective ways in which a PR company can prove to be bliss for your business popularity.

Next aspect carried out by experts is holding of events, press releases, conferences and meeting, where media persons are invited. Via this way, the media comes to know what new is about to lunch in business, which will eventually help customers gain knowledge about the product or service.

In order to make all these things effective, experts need to be good at managing business rapport. In accordance to this, they need to be updated with latest internet and social networking tools.

From the above information, you must have got an idea about public relations, its services and expertise of professional that help things to fall in right direction. So, if you want your business to reach out to mass audience, hire expertise professionals who are skilled in handling public relation for you.

Public Relations in Today’s Time

We all see hundreds of advertisements on daily basis; but do we remember any of those. Not really!

We remember only those advertisements, which are relevant to us. The message gets cluttered as target audience is shown so many advertisements at a one go.
As a result, marketers are banking on newer and newer ideas to replace the old model of advertising. It seems that Public Relation tools are proving to be as good as it can be.

Directors, CEOs, shareholders form the companies and now a days, CCO’s (Chief Communication Officer) also form an integral part of business firms.

Life at a fast pace- We are working almost close to 2/3rd of a day, establishing a communication is becoming difficult day-by-day. The challenge in today’s time is to attain attention of others and advertisers are finding it hard to achieve attention.

Creating a Buzz- Public Relations help in creating a buzz. Public Relations equipped with its tools can be utilized in a good manner. The tools of public relations are as follows:

Press – It involves creating and notifying news in the public.

Product Publicity – It is an activity where products are publicized publicly.

Public Affairs – Involving and engaging with the local and national communities.

Lobbying – It is common now a days where corporates influence the working of the legislation.

Investor Relations – One of the important relations need to be maintained with the shareholders.

Social Marketing – A new concept came into being where Facebook, twitter, blogs, newsletter play an important role.

How PR agencies came into being?

In today’s time, hiring Public Relations agency has become a household idea. They understand and analyze the business then come up with an effective blueprint to carry out the plan.

Public Relation firms are ethical in terms of their transactions. Telling a lie is not in their cards.

If we talk about long term, Public Relation firms help in saving a good amount of money.

Over a period, conglomerates usually get trap in scandals or some problems, which might diminish their image as well, at that point of time public relation firms play a vital role. Take the case of Toyota when they have recalled many cars, their image was at stake, at that time PR agencies existence came into being.

Underline these goals before executing next PR campaign

Without a good knowledge about how a public relations campaign is going to help, a brand may end up nowhere. Therefore, it is essential to set certain benchmarks, goals and targets well in advance before initiating a campaign. Only when you know what to expect out of it, will a business be able to assess what benefits it yielded at the end of it.

The first and the most straight-forward objective would be to improve a brand’s goodwill in the market. That is the basic task assigned to a public relations manager. Goodwill means a positive reputation about a company within communities where most of the business is done.

Positive rapport is like a driving force that motivates customers to do business with a brand and induces a sense of loyalty among them. It is the key to building long term relations with key people. Conducting charitable programs and community activities are a few techniques that any NY PR Firm would use to achieve this goal.

If more people are aware about a brand’s existence, better it will do in the industry. This is another goal of any public relations program; to raise knowledge and awareness about a brand and its product and services. This step is more crucial for companies that are relatively new in the marketplace and haven’t been in the industry long enough to establish a unique recognition and strong identity.

This goal is achievable by the means of publishing interesting articles, and press release in newspapers and featuring news stories. Participating into community events is also capable of boosting a brand’s recognition in marketplace.

Changing, modifying and shaping customers’ attitude and make them thing positively of a brand is another goal of a PR program. Certain companies struggle with negative perception in the industry and for them the foremost motive of doing public relations management would be to influence people’s perception by spreading positive word of mouth about its business practices and quality of products.

Last but certainly not the least goal of one such campaign is to inform audiences about anything new that is happening in the company that may interest them. This is done by sending out weekly email letters that often give free advice to people. This is done with an idea that staying in contact with customers and offering them useful information will generate positive awareness while keeping them informed about its practices.

How public relations have gained a competitive edge in bussiness marketing?

With the growing competitiveness in the business field, many companies have changed their marketing strategies in order to survive in the business field.

Traditional ways of promotion have cut short to a great extend or in other words is taken over by the new trends that have come into the market, keeping in mind the needs and consideration of clients.

With the advent of all technologies, the world is changing and so as marketing strategies. The application of old techniques is of no use, as it is not solving any purpose.

On televisions and magazines, we see so many advertisements regarding products and services, but not all are able to attract viewer’s attention.
However, many businesses still follow old traditional strategies of marketing; probably they aren’t aware of new techniques or might be in an illusion that they are way too costly.

In today’s era, public relations have hit the market. This is because of the defined results, which can be possibly obtained by this technique, unlike to other marketing techniques present in early times.

Moreover, strategies applied in public relations by expert PR agency helps out writer, editor and most of all the reader. Complete information is granted to all regarding the product and services that shows sincerity and truthfulness side of the company. Eventually this helps in raising the earnings or profits of business because people around the world definitely gets interested to purchase the products based on ads or commercials done in public relations activities. This likely help give a good brand name to product and the business.

Public relations, is not a one man task, various experts engaged in it. Following activities that are carried out comprise of:

• Speaking at conferences
• Working with the media
• Crisis communications
• Social media engagement
• Employee communication

Apart from the aforementioned things, different disciples that PR companies need to follow include analyst relations, media relations, investor relations, internal communications and Labor relations. Besides these, there are other PR disciplines such as financial public relations, consumer or lifestyle relations, crisis public relations, industry relations and government relations.

Now, if you are impressed by public relations activities and are in search of good firm that will help you provide optimal results of marketing, then do consider factors like experience, credibility, links of company with media and lastly trustworthiness factor.

The essentials of PR activities for small firms

If you own a business or anything that connects you directly with public, it is needless to say that you will definitely feel a need of conducting public relations campaign. It does not matter what the scale of your business or area of practice is, it is critical to ensure that the key people have a healthy and favorable image about that brand.   

The prime reason why someone would begin a business in the first place is to serve its key clients. Clients would only come to you if they trust the brand. If present and potential clients do not trust that name, sales will go down and so will the bottom line, which may even result in shutdown.

Unlike advertising, which directly promotes a brand on the behalf of a company through various mediums, the focus of PR services is directed towards enhancing and building a strong and healthy brand image among people.

While big organizations and MNCs have enough budget and large finances to sponsor their public relations activates, it is the small firms that need to make the most out of a small budgeted PR campaign.

The PR for small businesses need to be tightly focused; which is the biggest challenge faced by them.  For someone who owns an internet based business need to focus on his target market to secure good reputation in the industry. For those who own a small business that serves a local community it can be easier, but in the end focus is going to be the key factor.

As we discussed small entities often function with limited budget and need to get the maximum returns out of a small investment. If done the right way, a PR may not cost a fortune but will consume time and efforts along with strategic planning. It is all about projecting a company as the most reliable one in the industry or in its neighborhood to get maximum support from communities.

Whether you own a big or small firm, make sure that the focus of your public relations strategies is towards key people concerned. It should be public oriented and directed at what is most likely to get you big bang for bucks. Since the main motive is going to be winning the trust and customer loyalty, be sure to be honest and come up with what makes your brand stand out from others in the community.