UNIT 4

TOPIC 2: Corporate Communications & Public Relations

Public Relations (PR) is a modern management discipline undergoing significant changes

globally and in India, with new dimensions being added to its practice. PR, corporate
communication, and public affairs are key terms in this field, though PR remains a
comprehensive term encompassing various public interactions and issues.
Since P.R. and corporate PR both share similar work of image building or to influence publics,
but they are not the same. PR is a practice to maintain relationship with all publics including
consumer while corporate PR is an integrated communication and broader than PR.
P.R. is a practice of identification of policies and procedures of an organization with a public
interest. It is a development and execution of consumer’s action programme which is designed
to bring about public understanding and acceptance.

Key Differences Between Public Relations and Corporate Communications:

1. Scope and Purpose:

Public Relations: Focuses on maintaining a positive relationship with all publics, including
consumers, by influencing attitudes toward the organization and addressing various issues.
Corporate Communications: Broader, integrating PR to promote overall company awareness,
enhance image, and foster corporate reputation and social responsibility.

2. Management Function:
Public Relations: Evaluates public attitudes, aligns policies with public interest, and executes
programs for public understanding and acceptance.
Corporate Communications: Aims to enhance corporate identity, attract investment, and
improve the company’s image among stakeholders.

3. Communication Strategy:
Public Relations: Involves continuous, planned communication to build goodwill and maintain
a favorable reputation.
Corporate Communications: Promotes the company’s activities and corporate image, often
linked to financial performance and investor relations.
 4. Corporate Identity and Image:
Public Relations: Focuses on influencing public opinion and addressing misconceptions or
negative attitudes.
Corporate Communications: Manages corporate identity, branding, and the overall image
presented to various audiences, including employees, investors, and the public.

5. Crisis Management:
Public Relations: Deals with communication challenges, maintaining transparency, and
addressing public concerns proactively.
Corporate Communications: Ensures consistent messaging during crises to maintain corporate
integrity and stakeholder trust.

6. Integration with Marketing:

Public Relations: Supports marketing efforts through promotional activities and public
engagement.
Corporate Communications: Aligns with marketing strategies to enhance the overall corporate
image and support long-term business goals.

7. Objectives and Activities:

Public Relations: Aims to promote goodwill, manage public perception, and foster mutual
understanding. Activities include media relations, event management, and community
engagement.
Corporate Communications: Focuses on building corporate reputation, managing investor
relations, and enhancing employee morale. Activities include corporate advertising, internal
communications, and strategic messaging.

8. Audience:
Corporate Communications: The primary audience for corporate communications includes
both internal and external stakeholders. It is concerned with maintaining transparency and
consistency in communication within the organization and with external parties such as
customers, investors, and the general public.
Public Relations: The main focus of public relations is on external audiences, including the
media, customers, investors, and the public at large. Public relations professionals work to
shape public perception and manage the organization's reputation in the eyes of these external
stakeholders.
 9. Timeframe:
Corporate Communications: Corporate communications often involves both short-term and
long-term communication strategies. It is focused on maintaining consistent communication
over time to build trust and understanding among both internal and external stakeholders.
Public Relations: Public relations may involve more short term, campaign-based activities,
such as promoting a specific product launch, managing the fallout from a crisis, or handling a
particular event. However, long-term reputation management is also a crucial aspect of public
relations.

Conclusion:
Public Relations and Corporate Communications, while interconnected, serve distinct purposes
within an organization. PR manages relationships and public perception, while Corporate
Communications focuses on overall corporate reputation, identity, and strategic stakeholder
engagement. Both are essential for achieving organizational goals and fostering a positive
public image.
 TOPIC 3: PR PITCH AND CAMPAIGN

PR Pitch /Media Pitch

PR pitch is a brief letter, email or phone call offering a news story to a journalist or editor at a
newspaper, magazine, radio or television station. The aim of the pitch is to create interest in
the story and to find out if the contact is willing to use it. Journalists receive many pitches and
therefore respect those that are relevant and newsworthy. A successful media pitch helps small
businesses gain publicity for their company and builds good relations with the media for future
coverage.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A PR PITCH ARE:

• Relevant
A good media pitch reflects the interests of the medium and the individual journalist you are
contacting. If your business sells garden care products, for example, identify the gardening
correspondent on your local newspaper. To pitch the story to a national gardening magazine
with many different writers, check the list of contributors to identify the person with a specific
interest in garden care. Read the recent items written by the contributors you target to
understand their perspective on garden care. Targeting the right person increases your chances
of making a successful pitch.
• Newsworthy
Your story must be newsworthy because you are competing for limited space or broadcasting
time with many other pitches. If you have developed a breakthrough product, that story is more
interesting to a journalist than news of a routine upgrade to an existing product. A strong local
angle can help your pitch to local media. If you have developed garden care products for
drought conditions, for example, check the weather conditions for the media you are targeting.
• Brief
A media pitch must be brief. It is not a press release and only gives the outline details of a news
story or feature article. Explain why the item will be of interest to the audience and provide
brief highlights of the content. Let the journalist know the length of the story and indicate
whether you will supply the content or whether the journalist will need to arrange an interview.
Offer to send additional information if the journalist wishes to proceed with the story.
• Structured
Your pitch should cover the key points of the story from a journalist’s perspective — who,
what, where, when, why and how. This provides the framework for the journalist to assess the
potential of the story. Highlight any factors that affect the timing of the story. It may coincide
with an important anniversary, for example, or your breakthrough product may be launched at
a local trade show next month.
 • Timely
Journalists work on tight deadlines, particularly in radio and television or daily and weekly
publications. Contact your target media to find out their deadlines. If your story is tied to a
specific date, make sure that you give journalists time to consider your pitch and put together
a story by that date.

4 Steps to a PR Pitch Strategy:

“PR, as an industry, often comes under attack for its inability to map results back to tangible
business benefits,” comments Kimberly Youngstrom, Group Vice President, MWW Public
Relations. “While intuition and experience are essential, PR programs need the substantiation
and justification that sound research and analysis can provide.”
Here are four steps that will help you take more strategic–and intentional–approach to your
work.

Step 1: Do Your Homework before You Define Your Next PR Pitch Strategy
Building any PR pitch strategy should start with research. As Tanya Rynders, PR consultant
explains, “When developing a PR strategy, I use competitive insights to ensure that my team
doesn’t replicate an already existing idea. We also seek to uncover audiences that aren’t
currently being targeted.” She adds that research is also necessary for “keeping up with media
outlets that typically write about your brand or product and staying on top of current discussions
and trends in real time.”
Monitoring tools enable us to conduct this research in an efficient and timely way. On the macro
level, monitoring tools expose our companies overall brand perception as well as perceptions
of our competition, industry, and even customer segments. On a micro level, these tools
uncover press and social media discussions about products or services similar to those we’re
pitching. The greater our awareness of the competitive landscape, the better prepared we’ll be
to achieve our goal: create the right message, to the right audience, at the right time.

Step 2: Set Clear, Tangible Goals

Too often, we pitch for the sake of pitching. Maybe our boss has demanded “a press release
each week,” or maybe we’re trying to stay busy and show results. But we all know that you’ve
got understand what you’re trying to achieve if you hope to achieve anything worthwhile. Here
are some questions that will help us set our site on a clear, tangible goal:
Who is our message ultimately trying to reach?
What message(s) do we want to deliver to that customer?
What are we hoping to achieve?
With answers to these questions, we’ll be able to develop a clear, one sentence campaign goal,
which will help keep our messaging and outreach strategy focused. If we know why we’re
pitching and what we are trying to achieve, the next steps to completing our PR pitch strategy
will be that much easier.

Step 3: Hone Pitch Messaging Based on Research

By now we understand our customer and competitive environment, and we’ve set a clear goal.
We’re ready to shape our message. What we have to say should feel newsworthy to the
influencers we’re trying to engage, resonate with customers, and align to our business
objectives and and brand voice.
At the end of the day, great insights provide opportunities to tell unique stories that resonate
with target audiences.
A well-crafted pitch should be concise and easily digestible. It should inspire action and it
should resonate. It can take some time to craft a message that achieves these results. Write a
first draft, and then spend time trying to poke holes in it. Share it with a colleague or two for
feedback. If needed, edit, and edit some more.

Step 4: Identify and Understand Media Targets

With our pitch messaging completed, it’s time to decide on a distribution channel and
find influencers that will help us to reach our customer.
Don’t spam your message to every contact you have. We’re all flooded by communications and
no one likes getting ones that having no relevance to them. Instead, ask yourself who would
appreciate learning about what you have to say. You can start narrowing your list down by
further asking yourself if your message is best suited for a broadcast approach (press release)
or more personal approach (individual pitching). Does the message have mass appeal or will it
get better pick-up if we pitch it to a narrower, more targeted list of influencers? For example,
if we represent a tech firm announcing a merger with another firm we have a mass-appeal
message, in which case a press release may be best. If we are the same firm announcing an
upgrade to a current product, our message has a narrower appeal, and we should focus on select
influencers.
We’ll want to build our media list based on the subjects’ journalists in our niche are already
writing about. With the right tools it should take minutes to determine which journalists have
covered our competition, industry, and subject matter regardless of beat. Combine that list with
journalists with whom we’ve built relationships and we’re ready to go!
Ultimately, PR pitch strategy is the foundation to campaign success. In simple terms, it means
thinking through every decision you make so that it yields the best possible results—instead of
functioning on auto-pilot. PR professionals bring to the table a strategic way of thinking about
the communication between a company and its customer and it’s extremely important that we
remember this as we approach every project. If we follow the above steps and use the available
PR tools, developing good strategy can be quicker and much more effective.
PR CAMPAIGN
A public relations campaign is a series of activities that are planned in advance and relate to a
specific goal. This contrasts with other areas of PR, such as general ongoing publicity tactics,
paid advertising, and reacting to events. Ultimately a public relations campaign has three
characteristics: identifying an objective, finding the message that will help achieve that
objective and communicating that message to the appropriate audience.
• Specify an Objective
A good public relations campaign will have a clear objective. In theory this could simply be to
raise awareness of a product, service or brand, but ideally it will be more specific. This could
include a company increasing sales of a product or a pressure group changing public or
government behavior. A specific objective not only makes it easier to focus the planning and
execution of a campaign, but also to quantify its success.
For example, an objective to increase positive consumer opinions by 50 percent through the
use of social media sets a measurable goal while providing a basic look at a strategic tool that
will be utilized to achieve the desired result.

• Deliver a Message
Public Relations requires a clear message for the organization to communicate. A good rule of
thumb is to make the message as clear and concise as possible without losing precision or
risking ambiguity. Ideally the message will not just inform the audience of a particular fact or
viewpoint but will spur them into taking a particular action.

• Target an Audience
Public Relations campaigns occasionally target the entire population but usually need to target
a specific group. This should be the group most likely to respond as desired to the message.
For a company, this could be the type of consumer most likely to buy a particular product or
service, which takes into account interests, tastes and spending power. For a membership group,
this could be potential members.
For a campaign group, this could either be potential activists and supporters, or it could be
people in authority with the ability to make decisions that promote a cause. For example, a
promotional effort for luxury handbags or briefcases would fall on deaf ears in an impoverished
community while zip codes with high real estate values could embrace the message.
Pitfalls to Avoid
There are a wide range of other factors that can affect the success of a public relations
campaign. One is that it operates to a planned budget and that the money is spent in the most
effective way possible. Another is that it does not fall foul of any regulatory issues – for
example, by defaming somebody or by breaching rules on incentives offered to public figures.
Public relations staff also needs to plan carefully to make sure a message cannot be
misinterpreted or cause offense.
8 Steps to a Successful PR Campaign
Reputation is everything in business – the old saying ‘it takes years to build and only seconds
to lose…’ is totally true. So you have the choice of either leaving it to chance, or taking control
and ensuring you can choose the image of your business that reaches your audience.
A great way to do this is through PR, either in-house or by using a specialised communications
agency. Controlling your public relations message allows you to manage the positive flow of
information about you or your company. It also allows you to handle any negative comments
and give the correct responses at the right time.
Audiences are increasingly resistant to traditional marketing techniques, so PR is also a great
way to slip past any defences and connect with your audience via channels that they already
know and trust. Here's a simple guide that will help you to create a PR campaign that will
ensure you're able to remain in charge of the image you're projecting:

1. Know your outcome

Before you start contacting journalists, or writing fancy press releases, you need to decide what
your objectives for the PR campaign actually are. Taking the time to thoroughly investigate
this is vital. It will help you to be focused and stay on-message in everything you do. It will
also give you chance to monitor how effective your strategy is as it progresses.
A PR campaign can achieve many things – whether you want to add to the size of your audience
reach, boost sales, or improve your brand's reputation. List your aims, and set yourself
measurable targets – such as increasing sales by 10%.Whether you plan on implementing your
PR campaign by yourself, or using an external company, it's essential to have a thorough
knowledge of what you want to achieve, and to have a realistic timeframe in place.
You should make sure your targets are SMART:
Specific – what do you want to achieve?
Measurable – how will you measure it?
Achievable – how will you achieve it within your budget?
Realistic – Is what you want to achieve realistic with your resources?
Timed – What timeframe will you use?

2. Focus everything around your audience

By this stage, you should already have created focused customer personas to help you
completely understand your customers’ wants and needs. These will also help you to decide
which publications to engage with. Everything you do during your campaign should be focused
on addressing these wants and needs. This can get a little tricky, as you will often be
communicating through an intermediary – such as a newspaper.
You obviously want the journalists to buy into your business, but your message should be
primarily aimed at the potential customers in the audience, so always keep this at the forefront
of your communications.

3. Decide whether to use professionals or go it alone. Create a smart strategy

At the heart of any good PR campaign is a strong strategy. It needs to incorporate all aspects
of your business, and be part of the fabric of your operations.
The idea is to give off a consistent and positive image whenever you interact with customers –
whether that is through your website, or by securing press coverage for an event.
Creating a timed schedule for press releases and social media postings is important, as is
dedicating a certain amount of time to responding to the questions and interactions social media
channels generate.
You can use your schedule to plan ahead for upcoming events that are relevant to your sector.
By doing this, you can have a pre-prepared reaction, and ship it off to media companies as soon
as the announcement is made.
This can be a great way to gain coverage, as immediacy is incredibly valuable for journalists.
Here's a top tip – you can prepare multiple press releases for the different possibilities of a
future event, and then fire off the most relevant one as soon as the event happens – guaranteeing
your view is out there first.

4. Start creating targeted press releases

To give your press releases a chance of being picked up by media, it's important to construct
them carefully and distribute to the right people.
The best press releases have a strong news angle, rather than simply being adverts for a
business. No newspaper is going to print a story that is solely promotional. Be sure to include
relevant quotes – that can easily be used as sound bites – and include all the information a
journalist would need to write a story from what you send.
Distribute them to a media list that is relevant to your market, and don't be afraid to fire them
off to radio stations and TV channels, while making it clear that you're available for interview.

5. Make golden contacts

Shrinking budgets and dropping readerships mean journalists are spending less time than ever
before actually gathering news.
As a result, many are more than happy to receive press releases, and use stories that are pre-
prepared in this way. It saves them time and effort in finding their own stories, generating
interviews, and doing extra research.
Despite this, the average journalist or editor receives hundreds, if not thousands, of press
releases each day. The best way to ensure they click on yours is to make anything you release
interesting and newsworthy – of course – but to also try and send it to a focussed list of contacts.
Take the time to research the best people to send your press releases to, and don't be afraid to
follow up with a brief phone call to ensure they have received what you've sent. Obviously
exercise caution, and don't waste anyone's time, but never be afraid to give journalists a quick
call to update them about your situation and plans. Rather than sending your press releases to
the generic news desks of publications, find out which journalists write the most relevant
articles for your sector. You can then focus on building valuable relationships with those people.

6. Find creative news angles

Generating stories and angles that will get your press releases noticed can be difficult, so here
are a few ways to get your creative juices flowing:
Are you offering a new product or service?
Are you approaching an anniversary, such as five years trading?
Can you identify a problem your customers are facing, and then conduct research or a survey
highlighting this issue?
Can you offer a perspective on a relevant news story?
Has one of your customers or clients done something newsworthy?
Do you have a strong opinion on a development in your sector?

7. Use your personal brand

If you have a lot of competitors, and you're all offering roughly the same service, then you need
to find something that is unique. One thing you can guarantee is unique about your company
is you. By creating and promoting your personal brand alongside your business, you can
generate a multi-dimensional PR campaign. If you need an example of this, look no further
than Sir Richard Branson. The Virgin boss has 3,209,013 Twitter followers as I type this –
Virgin itself has just 76,842.

8. Assess how effective your campaign is

If your campaign isn't working, you need to identify that and work out why before you waste
too much time on it. On the flip side if it’s working great, try and work out exactly what the
sweet spots have been so you can repeat your successes.
Constantly refer to your strategy to assess whether you are meeting your aims and targets or
not. Conducting a formal monthly review is a great way to do this. Done well, PR represents a
fantastic, cost-effective way to ensure your customers are clued up about what you do, and that
you are always broadcasting the most beneficial business image.
 TOPIC 4: PR Campaign
Research, Setting Objectives, Programme Planning, Budgeting, Implementation,
Feedback/Evaluation

In a PR campaign, the following steps are typically involved:

Research:
▪ Conduct thorough research to understand the target audience, market trends,
competitors, and relevant industry insights. This will help in developing a strategic
approach for the campaign.
▪ Conducting thorough research is the foundation of any successful PR campaign. This
involves gathering information about the target audience, market trends, competitor
analysis, and relevant industry insights.
▪ Research helps PR professionals understand the needs, preferences, and behaviors of
the target audience, as well as identify opportunities and challenges that may impact
the campaign's success.
▪ Key research methods may include surveys, interviews, focus groups, media
monitoring, social media listening, and analysis of market data and industry reports.

Setting Objectives:
▪ Define clear and measurable objectives that align with the overall goals of the
organization. Objectives should be specific, achievable, and relevant to the campaign.
▪ Once research is completed, PR professionals can define clear and measurable
objectives that align with the organization's overall goals and priorities.
▪ Objectives should be specific, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART), guiding
the direction of the campaign and serving as benchmarks for success.
▪ Examples of objectives may include increasing brand awareness, enhancing reputation,
driving website traffic, generating leads, or influencing public opinion.

Programme Planning:
▪ Develop a detailed plan outlining the key messages, tactics, channels, and timeline for
the campaign. This plan should be strategic and tailored to reach the target audience
effectively.
Programme planning involves developing a strategic plan outlining the activities,
tactics, and timeline for achieving the campaign objectives.
▪ This includes defining key messages, identifying target media outlets and influencers,
selecting communication channels, and creating a content calendar.
▪ PR professionals also develop a crisis communication plan and establish protocols for
handling potential issues or emergencies that may arise during the campaign.
Budgeting:
▪ Allocate resources and budget for the campaign based on the objectives and planned
activities. Consider costs associated with media placements, content creation, events,
and other promotional efforts.
▪ Budgeting involves allocating financial resources to support the execution of the PR
campaign.
▪ PR professionals estimate costs associated with various activities and tactics, including
media relations, content creation, event planning, advertising, and measurement tools.
▪ Budgeting ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and effectively to maximize
the campaign's impact while staying within budgetary constraints.

Implementation:
▪ Execute the campaign according to the plan, ensuring that all activities are carried out
effectively and on schedule. Monitor progress, adjust strategies as needed, and maintain
consistent messaging across all channels.
▪ Implementation is the execution phase of the PR campaign, where planned activities
and tactics are put into action.
▪ PR professionals coordinate media outreach, distribute press releases, organize events,
create content, engage with influencers, and monitor social media channels.
▪ Implementation requires effective project management, collaboration with internal and
external stakeholders, and ongoing communication to ensure that activities are executed
according to plan and timelines.

Feedback/Evaluation:
▪ Collect feedback from stakeholders, monitor media coverage, and track key
performance indicators to evaluate the success of the campaign. Analyze results against
the objectives set earlier and identify areas for improvement in future campaigns.
▪ Feedback and evaluation are essential for measuring the success of the PR campaign
and identifying areas for improvement.
▪ PR professionals collect data and metrics to evaluate the campaign's performance
against the predefined objectives.
▪ Common evaluation methods include media coverage analysis, website analytics,
social media metrics, audience surveys, and sentiment analysis.
▪ Based on the evaluation findings, PR professionals provide recommendations for future
campaigns and make adjustments to strategies and tactics as needed to optimize results.

By following these steps, PR professionals can develop and execute effective PR campaigns
that achieve measurable results and contribute to the organization's overall success.
 UNIT 2
TOPIC 4: USE OF DIGITAL MEDIA AND EMERGING TRENDS IN PR

Digital Media

Over the last few years, it has become apparent that social media has captured the fancy of
most people. The extensive use of social media has drastically changed the way people
communicate and share information.
Social media has had a huge impact not only on people, but also on brands across industries as
they devise strategies to engage their audiences and win their loyalty. Public Relations (PR) is
no different as professionals constantly seek to communicate with and hear from customers,
who are ever-present and active on social media.
It, therefore, makes sense for PR practitioners to use it to their advantage. In fact, most of them
have made it an integral part of their practice and offer social media management services.
It’s not just Facebook and Twitter where brands strive to make their presence felt. Platforms
such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+ cannot be overlooked if modern PR
practitioners want to convey their story successfully.

Let’s take a look at how PR practitioners can use each of these platforms advantageously.
Facebook
Wherever you go, you’re sure to find people using Facebook as if they were addicted to it. You
can love it or hate, but you certainly cannot ignore it. It is extremely popular among the masses,
and allows you to engage your audience through high-quality content in the form of posts,
images, videos, infographics, and links.
In order to succeed on Facebook, you will need to become a conversational brand. Only then
will you be able to build a strong base of audience. Once you’ve developed that, they will be
able to follow your page and receive updates about your brand as and when you post them.
Apart from that, PR practitioners can also explore other features that may be helpful in
engaging audiences. These include Mentions (open only to public figures), Facebook’s
improved search function that makes public posts more accessible, Facebook’s shopping tab
(not available to all) to partner with marketers and leverage it for better sales, Instant Articles
(for iOS) to offer valuable content to customers, and Facebook Events to manage the many
events that will be organized.
Additionally, Facebook’s ‘Donate’ button, Music Stories and Facebook Professional Services
are other features that can be helpful to PR professionals.
Twitter
Another platform that is widely used by PR professionals in modern times is Twitter. ‘Short
and sweet’ should be you mantra on this platform as you are limited to 140 characters, which
is why it can get challenging to get your message across and ensure that it is thoroughly
understood.
However, Twitter is particularly great for making announcements to the public about businesses
or clients such as the launch of a new product, the winning of an award, an upcoming event,
introducing a new brand in a new market, or to keeping your audience updated during a crisis
or an emergency.
Of course, you need to let the hashtags (more on them mentioned later in the post) do the talking
for you. PR practitioners can also use Twitter to conduct research by keeping tabs on what
clients, competitors, friends, media or influencers are tweeting about. It is an effective
networking tool which makes it easy to connect with new people, follow them and get them to
follow you.
Using the Twitter app on iOS devices now comes with an added benefit to keep followers
engaged. With Periscope integrated into it, users can now view broadcasts as a live stream on
Twitter itself. PR practitioners can now tap into audiences with interesting visual content.
Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour says that a lot more is to come from this integration, which
is why PR professionals need to keep their eyes peeled and ears tuned in. Also, this feature will
soon be extended to other platforms as well.

Instagram
One of the reasons behind the success of Instagram is it’s ease of use. All you need to do is
click a photo and post it. Plus, the Search and Explore functions are turning the social network
into an easy-to-navigate news source.
Pictures can speak better than text. The main motive of Instagram is to offer interesting
accounts, photos and places to consumers. The biggest benefit for PR practitioners here is that
they get a ready-made source of influencers to investigate. Some of the most successful
Instagram campaigns have capitalized on this aspect.
In addition to showcasing their client’s offerings and credentials on Instagram, PR practitioners
can use visuals to create and raise awareness about issues and causes, take followers behind
the scenes to make a personal connection, and promote events before, after and while they are
in progress to entice, create interest and keep tongues wagging for a long time. Features such
as double-tapping and tagging people go a long way in increasing user engagement as well.

Pinterest
Through Pinterest, you can create value for your audience by curating content rather than
creating it. You can simply ‘Pin’ images and other content (typically DIY) systematically from
other sources on the Web into designated pages. These images can be viewed by your audiences
for inspiration or entertainment or both.
If PR practitioners succeed in getting this aspect right, they can build an army of loyal
audiences in no time.

Google+
The ability of Google+ to build avid communities of fans who support a cause or a person is
tremendous. PR professionals can explore this platform and find several communities related
to varied causes, interests and people.
PR practitioners can use ‘Circles’ to create groups of targeted audiences and send them
information that they know they will be interested in.
Face-to-face communication is a necessity when it comes to PR. This is where Hangouts comes
into the picture. Google+ ensures that everything that is posted is out there for the world to see.
This makes it an ideal platform to post media releases, announcements, podcasts and articles.

LinkedIn
Most people are still of the opinion that LinkedIn is more of a professional networking platform
rather than a social one. But that has changed with its new emphasis on publishing. LinkedIn
can now be used as a blogging forum as well.
PR practitioners can use LinkedIn to highlight their client’s experience, disseminate content,
finding influencers, gaining industry insights, connecting with new clients, discovering media
opportunities, identifying new business opportunities and amplifying clients’ media coverage.
While networking opportunities are the biggest draw of LinkedIn, PR practitioners can also use
it to establish the relevance of their clients’ company page(s). Such a page can prove to be a
critical touch point for your brand.
The company’s Twitter feeds can be plugged into its LinkedIn page, which can be
supplemented with an RSS feed from the company’s blog.
Further, there are tabs that allow you to emphasize key products and support images and videos
related to the company’s offerings. Page admins can see the page activities with the help of
analytics.
PR practitioners can increase their reach by joining LinkedIn Groups where customers and
prospects are, or by creating one themselves. The focus, however, should always be on quality
rather than quantity. Being in numerous groups does not mean having more contacts or
referrals.
By contributing quality inputs on these groups on a regular basis, PR practitioners can help
businesses establish themselves as influencers or thought leaders. The groups are also helpful
when it comes to conducting market research. Marketers can create free polls and post them to
LinkedIn Groups to collect feedback on a product or service.
Why Hashtags Matter on Social Media
Hashtags are all over social media. They date back to 2007, when Twitter users began to prefix
their words and phrases with the ‘#’ symbol in order to create groups. Today, however, all major
social networks use it.
The hashtags importance lies in the fact that when you click on one, on any social network,
you will automatically be shown all other public posts that contain the same hashtag.
This can be tremendously valuable for small businesses and their PR because hashtags can
expose their content to a wider and a more targeted audience, and help businesses get
discovered.
However, be careful that you do not use too many of them as doing so can hurt your
engagement. It has been found that when you use more than two hashtags, your engagement
actually drops by an average of 17 percent.
Want to know how to use hashtags to your advantage?
Continue to write your posts the way you always have; only turn a couple of keywords into
hashtags individually. This can be done by prefixing the ‘#’ sign before each word. When
placing a hashtag before a phrase, do not include spaces in between the words or you will break
the hyperlink.
That’s it, it’s that easy!

Case Studies: Social Media in Politics

Barack Obama's and Narendra Modi's successful use of social media to project a positive image
and connect with voters demonstrates the power of these platforms in political campaigns.

EMERGING TRENDS IN PR
Gone are the days when PR was limited to just reputation management, press outreach for
newspapers, radios and television, press release distribution etc. With the introduction of
Internet, the opportunities for PR have increased. PR professionals need to adapt to the
changing dynamics. The shifting focus from Traditional PR to Digital PR is evident, and we
cannot afford to ignore the important trends in PR.

Ten important Trends in PR:

1. Dying Traditional Press Release Dissemination - The traditional practice of
announcing news of a company through a Press Release has become outdated. Yes,
companies still use Press Releases as a means to spread their news but it is not only
limited to that. These days, companies and their agencies have started adopting newer
and faster ways such as directly pitching to the journalist, or collaborating with a
blogger to publish it. It is easier to publish news and information online and amplify it
 through social media. This will help you or any PR firm to increase your reach as well
as engagement.

2. Data Driven PR - The results of PR have always been questioned because they have
not been quantifiable. PR is critical for any business and it helps you give long-term
results. It is now possible to understand the impact of PR through proper data analytics
and mould your communication according to that. It is important that we establish Data
Driven metrics to help measure the correct results of PR activities. You can use data to
understand the type of audience you are targeting, behaviors, understanding the right
time to publish information etc.

3. Real-Time Marketing - One of the biggest trends developing in PR is Real Time

Marketing/reporting. As the name suggests, this is the process of leveraging events and
using social media (Live Video/ Live Tweets). PR professionals need to be prepared
and equipped for various situations and react to anything that may be happening.

4. Video Content - It is a proven a fact that displaying content through a Video creates
not just a better understanding but also help create a recall for your brand. A descriptive
video or even slideshows can help you deliver your message in a more effective way,
and your audience will prefer looking at a video on their phones rather than reading
blogs/news through written content.

5. Thought Leadership - A new and rising trend is building the thought leadership of
senior executives/CEOs of the company. This involves the senior management
publishing blogs, articles, views etc on various portals. Publishing such blogs on
reputed portals like LinkedIn and Quora will help increase credibility of the Leader as
well as their company.

6. Newer Ways of Content Amplification - Content amplification is a common

practice for all PR activities. Yes, you have built your content and published it as well.
To increase the readership and reach of that content, you need to amplify it through
social media. But using social media cannot be very fruitful. You need to combine it
with Paid Promotion as well. Using tools like Facebook Ads, Twitter Promoted Tweets
and LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, you can choose who exactly you want to target and
gather the type of engagement your content has generated.

7. Influencer Marketing - We cannot afford to ignore the growing importance of social

media in our lives. It is important to come up with innovative ways to reach out to your
audience. One of the rising trends is Influencer Engagement, the process of
collaborating with influential people on social media to post about and promote your
offerings. This can be through an organic, barter or paid collaboration. Choosing the
right type of influencers from your industry who have a high reach will give you a great
exposure.
8. Artificial Intelligence - Other than involving Artificial Intelligence in the basic
activities of PR like research, analysis and media mapping, you can integrate AI into
various other activities too. For example, using automatic audience targeting, or by
introducing Chatbot technology you can make the life of PR pros very easy.

9. Measuring Engagement - We have used data analytics to measure the kind of reach
and impressions our content has. But what will help us understand the real impact of
the content shared is by measuring the kind of engagement that it gathers. Analysing
the number of likes, shares and comments you are getting is crucial, but you also need
to gather understanding from such engagement. You can easily analyse the type of
people that are engaging with your content, and thanks to social media, you can even
respond to the negative and positive feedback you receive instantly.

10. Using SEO - It is an essential yet often ignored part of PR. Using SEO to find out
relevant Keywords and integrating them into your content will increase your chance of
being featured on the first page Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

11. Content Marketing - Content marketing is a strategy to create, curate & amplify a
content for building advocacy & thought leadership which can directly result in
achieving business & marketing objectives by influencing a set target audience. The
way we are doing public relations is purely dependent on the communication &
messaging.
 TOPIC 1: PR AGENCY

CONCEPT
A public relations firm or agency is a professional services organization, generally hired to
conceive, produce and manage un-paid messages to the public through the media on behalf of
a client, with the intention of changing the public’s actions by influencing their opinions.
Communications are often in the form of news distributed in a non-personal form which may
include newspaper, magazine, radio, television, Internet or other form of media for which the
sponsoring organization does not pay a fee.

PR agencies, as opposed to advertising agencies, promote companies or individuals via

editorial coverage. This is known as "earned" or "free" media -- stories appearing on websites,
newspapers, magazines and TV programs -- as compared to "paid media" or advertisements.

PR agencies and advertising agencies share the same goals: promoting clients and making
them seem as successful, honest, important, exciting or relevant as possible. But the paths to
creating awareness are vastly different. Most people understand advertising is paid for by the
client and should be viewed with skepticism. Articles or TV appearances in respected
publications have the advantage of third-party validation and are generally viewed more
favorably.

Firms and individuals should hire a public relations agency when they want to protect, enhance
or build their reputations through the media. A good agency or PR practitioner can analyze the
organization, find the positive messages and translate those messages into positive media
stories. When the news is bad, an agency can formulate the best response and mitigate the
damage.

STRUCTURE OF A PR AGENCY
The PR industry has changed enormously over the past 30 years. At one time it was enough to
be a skilled ‘generalist’ communicator; however, the rapid growth of consumerism means
products and brands each need a particular voice. In addition, the way government and politics
have evolved means that the way they communicate with the public has also evolved. The rapid
adoption of communications media and the growing role of PR means that PR professionals
now tend to be specialised in certain segments of the market.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE:

Internal communications (in-house PR)

This can also be known as in-house PR and it can range in size, depending on the organisation,
from a single person or a small team to a large corporate communications division.
Occasionally an internal communications team may bring in an outside agency to work on a
specific project. If an organisation is large, with a large team, it is likely that as strategic
communicators they will be involved with reputation management and with the preparation of
issues and crisis management plans. PR plays such a key aspect in these areas that often senior
managers become board directors as they become more involved with the company’s main
decisions.

Public sector
The public sector covers governmental agencies, councils and police forces. PR in these areas
may focus on helping to explain policies and actions as well as informing the public about their
rights.
There are two main types of public relation campaign used within the public sector.
• ‘Information campaigns’ provide information to the general public and involve one-way
communication.
• ‘Communications campaigns’ involve discussion with the public about policies and actions;
their intention is to influence the knowledge and opinions of the public and stakeholders, but
they involve two-way communication.

External communications
External communications consists of PR consultancies and these vary hugely in size and
experience; some consultancies operate as part of a large international group while others may
only have a small team of staff working for them.
However, most consultancies will operate a similar hierarchy of staffing, with the main job
titles shown below. Consultancies work on a fee basis with a budget for costs and time being
set at the beginning of a project. They will report to their clients via face-to-face and telephone
meetings as well as through the use of written reports.
When a business commissions agency work, they will generally seek an agency either for a
specific project (for example, the launch of a specific product) or for an ongoing contract (for
example, providing a full PR service over a long period of time). The organisation will normally
approach a number of agencies, which will produce pitches based on the brief supplied by the
client. A number of members of the team will contribute to the creative treatment and the final
pitch.

Explanation of PR Consultancy Hierarchy:

While structures may vary, here's a typical hierarchy within PR consultancies:
1. Company Director: Owns the company and sets its strategic direction.
2. Associate Director: Manages strategic account direction, client relationships, and
business development.
 3. Account Director: Plans, oversees daily operations, develops client proposals, manages
budgets, and ensures client satisfaction.
4. Account Manager: Leads a team of account executives, serves as the primary client
contact, develops proposals, implements plans, and manages budgets.
5. Junior/Senior Account Executive: Works within teams on client accounts, liaises with
clients and media, handles media relations, monitors media coverage, prepares reports,
manages events, and commissions research.
6. Account Assistant: Entry-level position supporting the team with tasks like research,
media list creation, database management, presentations, photo files, press kits, and
administrative duties.
Understanding these structures allows organizations to choose the most suitable PR approach
for their needs.

FUNCTIONS OF A PR AGENCY
Public relations agency monitors the attitude of the public in general in Favor of the company. It sends
out information and spreads communication to the public for building goodwill of the organization. The
public relations agency counsels the top management to adopt positive programmes. They eliminate
questionable practices so that negative publicity does not arise against the company.
A Public Relations agency performs the following functions:
1. Press relations: A PR agency performs the function of creation and dissemination of information to
Press. This is known as publicity.
2. Product Publicity: The product information presented in the ‘Paid space ‘of media is read or heard
by a company’s customers or prospects. The agency publicizes the product through sponsoring efforts.
3. Corporate communication: PR agencies promote the understanding of the company and its products
and services. For this purpose, they undertake external and internal communication.
4. Lobbying: Lobbying means dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat
unfavourable legislation and regulation. Professional lobbyists are employed in order to influence the
key decisions of the government affecting company’s prospects.
5. Counselling: Public Relations agencies advise the top management on matters related to public
issues. This also includes advising the company in the event of product mishap.
6. In-house journals: Many service organizations such as hospitals, health care, beauty parlour etc.
publicize their own magazines which are circulated among customers and the role of PR agencies in
developing in-house journals is quite significant. Apart from in-house journals, companies publish
annual reports, brochures, articles, company’s newsletter and audio-visual materials. Creating websites
on the history of the company and its present developments also influence the target markets.
7. Special events: PR agencies help organizations attract media attention by arranging newsworthy
organizations. These special events are the backbone of service marketers.
8. Public service activities: PR agencies help companies build goodwill by contributing money and
time to good causes. Large corporate ask executives to support community affairs.