Discipline
Public relations
Earning attention and trust through the media and the public: media relations, corporate and crisis communications.
Public relations earns attention and trust through the media and the public: media relations, corporate communications and crisis communications. A third party vouching for the story carries a credibility that bought space cannot, which makes PR central to reputation, to launches that need validation and to changes that need explaining. It trades control for credibility: coverage is never guaranteed, and relationships take years to build.
Start with the 101Public relations 101: the whole pictureHistory, how it works, where it is used, what it costs, the rules, its limits and when to choose it, with every claim sourced.Read the 101Need a hand with this discipline? Ask members who practise it.
What matters when choosing
- Real news, data or expertise to offer, before any pitch is written.
- Relationships with journalists in your sector, built before you need them.
- A message house that keeps every spokesperson on the same story.
- A crisis plan that has been rehearsed, with spokespeople who have already faced a camera.
- Evaluation of outcomes through research, not counts of press clippings.
Questions to ask vendors and agencies
- What will change for the audience if this works, and how will we measure it?
- Which journalists and outlets know us already, and how will you earn the others?
- When did we last rehearse the crisis plan, and who speaks first?
Common mistakes
- Reporting advertising value equivalents, which the profession's own evaluation principles reject.
- Counting coverage as the result, when it is only an output.
- Paying for coverage without disclosure, which breaks advertising rules and professional codes.
What it is good at
- Credibility that comes from a third party.
- One story that can travel across many outlets.
- Resilience in a crisis, built on relationships and trust.
What to watch for
- No control over what is said, or whether anything is said at all.
- Skilled people and research are not cheap, even without a media bill.
- Trust lost in a crisis is slow to rebuild.
How it is bought and priced
PR buys people and time, not media: agencies usually charge a monthly retainer, a project fee or time by the hour. Tools for media databases, monitoring and distribution, and research for evaluation, come on top; coverage itself is never for sale.
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Platforms that fit (3)
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