In a recent post last week, (that summarizes the additional sequence of events leading to that post and this), I provided a list of action words to begin to help modernize the definition of public relations. I want to garner peer consensus to define PR for the grassroots level and encourage people to use it in respective channels and with clients and up-and-comers. This topic is not as exciting as SXSW, or s new book ,” but I made a commitment, and I’m going to see this through.
If you’re reading this post for the first time, public relations as a discipline and professionals as an audience are taking a beating from folks who have the dais on national newspapers’ blogs and other key places buoyed by social media. We who uphold public relations image struck back in a show of unity to try and combat the negative publicity. My own commitment is to re-write a definition that’s been done and re-done for years. But, when you look at the definition of PR by the , it’s highly antiquated and confusing, even for a 27-year veteran like me.
So, on the blog link above, there was a list of about two dozen action-oriented descriptions. A handful of people helped pare down the list, and while there wasn’t necessarily consensus, there was agreement in key areas; enough to push us to phase two.
Draft One (Adding all the favorites from the list into one big mashed definition):
Public relations is:
A strategic discipline aligned to business goals that builds, nurtures, and masters human connections and perception; influences and manages reputation, brand and culture while communicating messages across mediums.
Nearly everyone agreed the “for whom” part of what we do is targeted to “diverse audiences, stakeholders and organizations’ publics.”
So, we can add to the end of this initial draft:
A strategic discipline aligned to business goals that builds, nurtures, and masters human connections and perception; influences and manages reputation, brand and culture while communicating messages across mediums to diverse audiences and organization stakeholders.
I’d like to get your thoughts on this lengthy draft to describe public relations. How can this be sliced and diced without losing its emphasis?
Once we dissect it further, I’m going to present the definitions from various other accrediting bodies and references sources side by side. Then we can see if our attempt at modernizing the definition of public relations is worth a hill of beans.
Hi Jayme,
I went through the mash up list and at first passed narrowed it to 18 bullets; not very narrow. I struggled with what I think PR should be and what I actually do in my specific role of marcom. These are what I came up with, not necessarily a definition of PR:
• Define, create, disseminate messages/communications of a company’s narrative
• Align communications strategy with marketing and business goals
• Promote and foster positive exposure and awareness to build reputation
• Manage communication. Create content, network and engage
• Champion “joined up” approach with marketing, digital, traditional PR and social media
As for editing your current pass. (Very good, by the way – you must ‘do communications’ for a living!) Here is my attempt:
A strategic discipline aligned to business goals that builds human connections; influences and manages brand reputation and culture while communicating messages across mediums to diverse stakeholders.
I’ve basically ‘pared’ down what you have – keep “builds human connections’ because to build can also encompass nurturing and mastering. I’ve eliminated “perceptions” not that its any less important, but felt that ‘reputation’ encompasses perceptions; and ‘stakeholders’ can cover diverse audiences in and out of the organization.
I applaud your efforts on this mission. Keep up the great work!
Patty, this is great input! I love what you did; thank you so much for your input here. I’m liking this definition, too; it really works. Hope to get a few more thoughts from peeps, too; otherwise, we’ll move along with what we’ve got here!
Hi Patty,
Really liked the ‘builds human connections” part – very deep and apt for the definition.
“A strategic discipline aligned to business goals that builds human connections; influences and manages brand reputation and culture while communicating messages across mediums to diverse stakeholders.” is definitely more complete now.
Thanks!
You did vote for that “human connection” and I know why! You are one! A human connector!
First off, great post!! It really speaks to me but I am an integrated marketer, so whatever I say comes out Latin to most CEOs. I think what you guys are doing is great, we (as marketing people) need more content and collaboration to help educate ourselves and the industry as a whole. Today more than ever PR is Brand, say it with me…”PR is Brand”. PR is well crafted corporate/personal content that is disseminated by x # of channels, so whatever type(s) of channels you use the creative must go as well. It’s the companies public voice from co-workers to the general populous, and I don’t understand why (most of the time) PR is the guy tucked waaay back in the room. PR=Brand
Hi, Jon! Is that your tongue sticking out in your avatar? LOL! Much appreciate your insight especially with the “integrated marketing” hat you wear. PR = Brand. Well, what is brand? I think I wrote a post on that somewhere, “Please define brand,” or some such.
And, some purists still want to separate the disciplines and then come together to fill the gaps in the integrated marketing strategy. I, too, am an integrated practitioner; used to be pure in the old days when getting my start, but no one can survive tooting the horn of one discipline only. That’s where the fields were in the ’80s and soon that changed.
The social media channel has further blended us, too. Come back again!
OK – I’m being a pain here. I really like the phrases you’ve picked. I think they do a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the profession, and bringing it in line with business practicality of today.
I just wonder if flopping it might put the emphasis a bit more on the messaging component instead?
A strategic discipline responsible for communicating messages across mediums to diverse audiences and organization stakeholders with the goal of building, nurturing, and mastering human connections and perception; influencing and managing reputation, brand and culture in promotion of overall business goals.
Thoughts?
Seriously, a pain? Heck no! You’re taking your time to come here and contribute; couldn’t be more valuable! Thank you!
As for flipping the definition…interesting. Do you think “communicating messages” is more tactical than strategy? Shouldn’t we have the objectives/strategies first to describe “what” and then have the message communication (how) and audiences (to whom) follow?
Every opinion counts, Rachel. Thanks for yours.
Hi Jayme, As someone who is not a PR person per se, I’ve been ‘quietly reading’ with a lot of interest, your process to reach some concensus around a new definition of PR. What came to mind for me is: should the word holistic be included? PR seems to reach into all aspects of business and as such, is a holistic discipline. So… PR is a strategic, (holistic) discipline aligned to business goals that builds, nurtures, and masters human connections and perception; influences and manages reputation, brand and culture while communicating messages across mediums.
I also wonder about the word “masters” in your PR definition. “Masters” sounds old-school, authoritarian and one-way.
Great series! Thanks for sharing and enlightening me.
I like these quiet thoughts. I’m noodling on “holistic” as that means PR addresses the whole kit ‘n caboodle, right? Every aspect of an organization is affected by PR?
Masters — I fully agree with your assessment. Let’s take a look at that. Thanks, Dawn!
I think this is a great post and a very important topic! I think you need to keep business goals up front and center. We need to do more in PR to make sure we really are aligning with business goals. I agree with @dawncomber about “masters.” I am at a loss for a better suggestion but somehow it doesn’t do it for me. Another point that I thought you might be more specific on is mediums. If I were a non-PR person, I would find that vague. My two cents.
Good input — “masters” and “mediums” will be addressed in next version. Thanks, Jeremy for your input here! Tag!
Jayme (and Jeremy) I’ve been a bit late in coming to the party today! Apologies. I do agree with Jeremy however in that we need to think about our audience for this definition. Is it for the PRSA or for the public at large, or for use by both? I’m all for writing for the masses so that it can be understood and related to…that said, mediums and masters might need to be switched out for just ‘builds’ as Patty Swisher recommends or add in ‘enhances’ human connections. We might also think about how it might be ‘perceived’ if we say we’re about ‘mastering perception’ – that might denote ‘spin’ and we know how much we hate that word! How about ‘clarifying’ or ‘authenticating’ perception. I love authentic, but that sounds a bit stiff to me. 🙂
A strategic discipline responsible for communicating to and with diverse audiences and organization stakeholders in order to build human connections; clarify perceptions; influence and manage reputation, brand and culture in order to better align with business goals.
I don’t think we have to specify in which mediums because they will be ever-changing and we need to be responsive to that, rather than boxing in a profession to certain ones.
There, I’m done. Night-night!
I am loving this, Erica. Thanks ever so for your valuable input! This has been a wonderful exercise, and as mentioned in response to Davina’s comment, Can the practitioners who specialize (IR, corporate, not-for-profit, etc.) define themselves by this explanation and then hone it with respective strategies, tactics?
Some good input here Jayme. I like what everyone added, esp. Erica’s change about business and communications goals. I’m one that doesn’t think anything happens without communication; meetings, events, an audit still has an aspect of communicating a message. I also liked Patty’s input about MarComm and part of me thinks PR serves communications and marketing goals, in service of business strategies.
Another thing I like but not sure how to improve is the “communicating to and with” vs. the “communicating messages across mediums” as I sometimes what out for conduit metaphors, the notions that communication is a pipeline. You broadcast out a message via some channel or medium; the naive and unfortunate presumption is that said message is delivered, exactly as planned; and understood and perceived by the audiences, as intended. Call the folks at Groupon and they can explain the fail.
My only other issue is it’s still so vague, oblique. Advertising is the crap we zap on DVR, aka the buying of promotional messages for a product, brand or service on media including but not limited to TV, radio, paper, blogs, sides of buses, uniforms of athletes, and hardwired into anything that can sit still long enough to brandish a logo for the purposes of increasing sales, awareness. It’s of course more complicated, plenty of strategy behind it, often having less to do with sales and more to do with branding, positioning, market strategy and even a little PR. Yet that kind of language is fairly precise… and nothing I Googled. Just typing out loud here.
I struggle to find wording better than what you have without falling into traps like using other definitions; without including some of the many facets of PR such as investor relations, crisis management, employee communications and yes, media relations and publicity. IDK.. still working on it, thanks for keeping me thinking. FWIW.
This is why I love you stopping in, Davina. You make great points and explore the angles from all sides. IMHO (see, I’m catching on), the over-arching definition needs to be vague, yet clear, so every single organization and company we touch can interpret it according to their respective strategies.
If we drill in too deeply to the strategies (with tactics) that’s the can of worms a definition has to avoid. But, asking the question — Can those who specialize in IR, publicity, internal corporate communications (employee) agree to this definition/find the common denominator?
This is why I love you stopping in, Davina. You make great points and explore the angles from all sides. IMHO (see, I’m catching on), the over-arching definition needs to be vague, yet clear, so every single organization and company we touch can interpret it according to their respective strategies.
If we drill in too deeply to the strategies (with tactics) that’s the can of worms a definition has to avoid. But, asking the question — Can those who specialize in IR, publicity, internal corporate communications (employee) agree to this definition/find the common denominator?
I think this is still too intangible and full of jargon. If I sent this to my parents, they’d still have NO IDEA what I do. My six year old niece tells people I work on a computer. Perhaps we should start there?
I have to think on this. I’ll be back.
OK; in just a bit; I’m going to use your comment on today’s post to see how we move the needle away from jargon. Thanks, Gin.
Said pretty much the same Gini, it’s still very abstruse, hard to get a perspective. My family knows “I work on a computer” and can at least see the design when I work on a flyer or newsletter, not much else. But the rest is still vague, just outside their frame of reference. So yes Jayme we don’t want to confuse strategies with tactics, yet there should be some tangible specifics which are relatable. FWIW.
Shouldn’t Charlie Sheen be mentioned here somewhere. 8)
I often view Public Relations like I do Advertising. Really hard to pin a definition because of the complexity and varied angles, channels, sectors.
Are you Charlie’s publicist? He is sooooo yesterday (and thanks for your help here, Howie!).
🙂 🙂
I am currently studying Publich Relations in London and we did a Man on the street interview to find out exactly how much the Public knows about the PR industry. The result was rather entertaining. Feel free to watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfOG58BfNk