5 (Five) Reasons why Public Relations must be paid for and controlled

My thesis for this piece is simple: PR must be paid for and controlled. Two of the biggest lies they teach in PR class is this: ''1.PR is not paid for'' 2.''PR is uncontrolled media''. Proponents of this logically depraved philosophy have reasoned that Public Relations is assumed to be credible, as companies don't pay for or have control over how their publications or contents are shared, distributed or even the prominence with which such contents are treated. This line of thinking is not just logically vacuous, but it is truly out of touch with realities of the practice.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking has invariably affected practitioners, both in terms of their role in the organizational hierarchy and the resources that are assigned to them. From my experience in Agency and corporate, i know the Public Relations Department is the most deprived of all the departments. In fact, PR is the only department, people only relate to base on their perception of the function. By the way, PR department is not an English department. It is a strategic function, which should be accorded its place of pride in terms of role, resources, and capacity.

1. An Information-age

The time we live in has been described as the paradox of plenty: That is, the more information people are exposed to, the less attentive they are to that information. This stands therefore to reason that that in an information age, the biggest hurdle for every content creator or public relations professional is the hurdle of cutting through the clutter of information overdose. You cannot live in an information age, where people get bombarded with information from every angle, and not be strategic about cutting through the clutter or standing your message out. This is why any attempt to assume that not paying for public relations content to be carried is strategic enough.  Yes, your media partners, usually the friends your PR has cultivated, can share an organization’s content for free on their platforms but with what prominence, at what frequency or spin ?

2.Nothing Strategic is Free.

Being strategic can make an organization efficient and effective, reducing their cost. However, this does not mean that an organization will get things done for them, free of charge. In fact, part of being strategic about communication is getting prepared to commit the needed resources to take advantage of spontaneous events. You remember the Oswald experience? Imagine if these companies who donated and got all these media mileage, were in no position to mobilize resource at the pace at which they did. They would have completely lost out. Not committing resource into the public relations function will only render the PR an ad hoc unit, which is only useful until there are serious issues. This practice is not strategic and deliberate. Today, being strategic about Public relations include, investing in Webinars, organization media tours or soirees for media partners of influencers, providing freebies for social media community, investing in social listening and data analytics tools.

3. It is not true that not paying makes an entity credible.

 I don't just, in my wildest imagination, see how a company will believe that failing to provide the needed resources for an important PR to function will, in turn, lend them some semblance of credibility in the eyes of their publics (Stakeholders, Target Audience). How can i be convinced that by not controlling what companies allow their media partners to put out there on their behalf, their audiences or publics, will consider them as being credible. This thinking is fallacious. Public Relations must be paid for, if paying is necessary to give a company the needed prominence, mileage and to stand a content out of the clutter. Part of the role of being strategic communicators, is not just knowing how to say something but most importantly knowing where and how to say it. 

Control is a leverage:

Public relations, which is responsible for shaping a favorable corporate image for a company, lose control over what and how they are represented in the media. That will be irresponsibility at it hilt. Yielding control over what content and the prominence same is given to the public about an organization is not smart and strategic. If these statements are anything to go by, then companies cannot lose control over how they are represented, the same way they cannot lose control of their finance, human resource, and other operational matters. When PR function has control, there is more creativity, predictability, and ultimately leverage for an organization.

 

Personalizing the functions

The practice of falling on the Public relation professional’s good will and media contacts to get content out there on behalf of an organization, to me, is not professional enough. Whilst i am not against the principle that a public relations professionals must have some good contacts and relationship with the media, I equally don’t think it is professional to personalize this relationship, through constant pitching of stories, at no cost. What I have seen is that when these relationships become personalized, it affects the workflow in the organization, especially when the person with the contact is not available. Again, there can be some rippling implications for the organization if these personal relationships get sour. Organizations must be deliberate about cultivating media partners and even training these professionals to understand their media relations style and policy.  This will be a worthwhile investment in the long-term.

Conclusion

If image is everything, then the public relations functions, which oversees the image of an organizations, cannot come at nothing. Public relations practitioners must be adequately resourced, so they can be deliberate about making strategic decisions that promotes a positive image and reputation for their organizations.

 

 

 By the way, see how Zoomlion got their statement out. A whole banner. That is prominence. That is control. They could have chosen to just copy the media (as though they care), which would not get this level of prominence. This is indeed strategic.

Samuel Osarfo Boateng

Writer/Content Strategist