# Basic Guide to Public Relations
In simple words, public relations (PR) defines how a company communicates with people (i.e. customers, partners, journalists, philanthropists, politicians, and the general public). Especially now, all businesses need public relations, regardless of their size or industry.

### But why we need PR, Teo?
Well, it is because, nowadays, customers want to trust the brands they do business with and here is where public relations plays its role building and fostering trust.

### So, lets define PR...
According to James Gruing (1984), PR is the practice of deliberately managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) and the public.

In other words, PR is the practice of leveraging media channels to promote an organization and cultivate a positive public perception, managing an organization’s brand and communications especially in times of crisis.

PR is also how brands manage the spread of their information, we could said that is similar to branding. However, the main difference is that PR is focused on communication and reputation, whereas branding relies on visual elements like logos, websites, and marketing materials.

## Teochka, how an organization can manage their PR (communication and reputation)?
As our second definition mention it, through various media channels, which we can organize into three main categories that include autonomous, outsourced, and self-built media. Each type works towards the same goal of building a positive reputation, but they use different strategies to achieve it.

I believe that our PR strategies should include all of them, as they all provide different ways of reaching, engaging, and building trust with our audience.

1. Autonomous media is defined as any content that our business controls. Therefore, the most important type of PR-related media that we should be focusing on. This is because we have total control, unlike the other two media tactics. It’s often the go-to strategy for businesses that start looking to build a PR campaign, which includes: Social media posts, Blog content, Website, and Email newsletters
Autonomous media acts as a “headquarter” for our PR activity. When people write about our brand or products, they will likely find a reference here.

2. Outsourced media refers to hiring a party outside our company to make our content visible. It’s very common to outsource to promote our content in the marketing world as same as the PR environment.
Outsourced media is also a standard practice to promote the autonomous media. It includes: Social media advertising, Influencer marketing, and Pay-per-click (PPC)
Investing into boosting PR content is becoming increasingly popular nowadays. Since the majority of social platforms are reducing organic reach for business accounts, outsourced media is a fantastic way to make sure our content gets in front of the people you want to see it.

3. Self-built media is the hardest type of PR media to obtain. It takes a lot of effort, consistency, and hard work to establish it. It’s essentially word-of-mouth and some experts considered that one of the best PR tactic to build our reputation. Self-built media includes: Mentions in industry news and reviews, Praise from customers on social media, and High rankings on search engines

All of these media channels implements ways to use PR to build brand recognition, generate leads, and convert those leads into satisfied customers. This could be very similar to marketing strategies.

## Teo, what is the difference between PR and Marketing then?

Good question my dear, PR and marketing are similar in their actions and approaches, but their goals are quite different. The main goal of PR focuses on increase the reputation of our brand. On the other hand, the main goal of marketing is to create demand by driving sales.
**So you are saying that, unlike marketing, PR doesn’t always have an impact on sales.?** Yupe because PR indirectly promotes our products or services through activities like press release distribution and speaking at industry events. Alternatively, instead of improving the perception of the business, marketing campaigns focus on creating demand, increasing revenue and generating profits.

Let’s understand this synergy in this way, people don’t buy **products**, they buy **brands** (like you use iPhone and I use Samsung). Therefore, combining PR and marketing gets the best results: typically, someone connects with our brand as a result of our PR efforts (potential customer) and converts into a customer as a result of our marketing approaches.

## But Teo, which are the PR approaches to build and manage our reputation?

PR approaches includes: Business events, Community relations, Corporate and social responsibility, Crisis management, Employee relations, Media relations, and Social media.

1. Business events help us market our products or services and gain exposure for our brand. Whether hosted or attended by our company . Events are also important sales opportunities because give you a chance to meet potential customers and delight current ones face-to-face.

> TIP: Speaking engagements at events are also helpful for increasing brand awareness by sharing our particular thought leadership or data-driven information, which will increase our brand attraction ;))

2. Community Relations help us build positive relationships with the local community around our business. This could include charity work, donations, special discounts, or anything that builds a strong relationship with the community and strengthens customer loyalty.

3. Corporate and Social Responsibility is similar practice as community relations, however it places a greater emphasis on ethical practices, environmental responsibility, and philanthropy (this can be locally, regionally, and globally). This practice is a critical PR area because it may directly affects public perception of our brand.

4.Crisis Management is the practice of acknowledging, managing, and working to reverse negative communication and perception surrounding a business crisis. Crisis management is a critical function of PR and should be handled quickly, consistently, and strategically. With certain PR tools, crises can be identified through quality-checking marketing or promotional materials that may be misunderstood or misinterpret.

> TIP: Anything that could jeopardize or ruin our brand’s reputation should be handled through PR ;))

5. Employee Relations, aka internal PR, is the practice of communicating with and cultivating a positive employee perception of our company. This practice not only keeps our employees motivated, and loyal, but it also encourages them to support our business. This process may include employee perks and benefits, free training opportunities, and employee appreciation events, among others.

6. Media Relations help us building positive relationships with journalists, publications, and other news outlets (you are a PRO in this). This process typically includes writing press releases, organizing press releases, and scheduling interviews. Not only does this gain exposure for our business and products but it also encourages the media to market our brand for free.

7.Social Media is a helpful PR and marketing tool that effectively gather followers, convert customers, share our content, communicate and resolve crises. considered both an outsourced and self-built media PR approach. For most companies, social media can be a

> TIP: Social media activities are open to the public. Therefore, it’s critical to have a social media strategy that keeps our communications consistent, positive, and accurate ;))

## Ok Teochka, but how can I measure the impact of my PR?
Nice question my dear, measuring our PR performance and impact can be tough. Therefore, we need to define some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs will help us track our PR efforts and determine the effectiveness of our PR strategies.
PR KPI's includes: Backlinks, Brand mentions, Demographics, Domain authority, Attitude, Site traffic, Social media engagement, Social sharing.

1. Backlinks , also called inbound links or incoming links, are created when one website links to another. They help us find where and in what context our brand has been mentioned. Backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from one site to another.

> TIP: Collecting backlinks is not just new incoming traffic into our website, but could also increase our SEO rankings ;))

2. Brand Mentions occur when someone mentions our brand. This metric is important because it helps you measure the brand awareness .
You might remember this when you had your old Instragram. For example if we see our brand mentions in traditional news coverage, on other business or personal blogs, in reviews, or on social media.

>TIP: It is important to read brand mentions for context. Remember, we want people to be saying good things about our brand, and it is not always easy to understand the value of coverage until we read the entire piece. (I’m talking about measuring the attitudeㅎㅎ)

3. Demographics help us discover where our customers came from by either surveying customers after they consume or purchase our product and asking how they heard of it. While the volume of new customers coming directly from our PR activity isn’t the easiest to measure, it is definitely worth investigating.

>TIP: Google Analytics will help us learn about our customers’ demographics and conversion paths. While this is an exciting metric to track, we shouldn’t feel disheartened if we don’t see an influx of conversion-ready site traffic. Remember, the goal of PR is to raise brand awareness, spread the ideas of our internal thought leaders, and communicate the ideas of our brand. Those new site visitors could always return and make a purchase in the future ;))

4. Domain Authority refers to our website’s SEO ranking and how it performs in search results. This KPI is ranked from 1 to 100 (with 100 being the highest) and is a valuable measure of how our website compares to our competitors’. The higher our domain authority is, the better our website will rank in search results. Domain authority is made up of three main factors: backlinks, well-ranked websites, and the age of our site.

> TIP: While we cannot magically make our website older, we can focus on increase the quality of the backlinks we place in our content.

5. Attitude measures how our brand is mentioned. While brand mentions and backlinks typically improve our brand awareness and SEO, attitude is what sets apart the positive mentions from the negative one.

> TIP: You have probably heard the saying “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Well, I can’t agree or disagree, I would say that it is at least good practice to be aware of negative press. Tracking attitude can help us understand what our audience is saying about our brand and whether or not we need to address any problems or concerns ;))

6. Site Traffic is a sign of successful PR efforts. If people are hearing about our brand through self-built media and heading to our site, our PR efforts are reaching our audience.

> TIP: As we run PR campaigns, tracking the site traffic once press releases go live. Use the site analytics to check visitors’ referral sources (how they made their way to our website) and aim to replicate this in the future.

7. Social Media Engagement measures the views, impressions, likes, shares, and comments for our online business' social media efforts. This information shows the level of brand awareness and engagement among our audience members.

>TIP: This KPI tell us when our audience is most active. Therefore, a good chance to be posting and interacting with our followers ;))

8. Social Sharing describes when social media users broadcast web content on a social network to their connections, groups, or specific individuals, which is different than social media engagement. One of the primary aims of corporate social media PR strategies is to generate brand awareness by leveraging their existing audience to share content. Therefore, this is a critical metric because it tells us that our audience enjoys our content enough to assert for it on their social channels. It’s a very clear measure of our brand reputation among our audience.

> TIP: When looking at social sharing, we must pay attention to which type of content is frequently being shared. This will give us an idea of what our audience enjoys the most and what kind of content to create more of ;))