The Benefits Of Maximising Your PR

14/07/2011

By Lucy Saunders, Owner of Mahseer Ltd

- PR, that’s press releases, isn’t it?

- PR, that’s about the social media, twittering, LinkedIn, blogging …

- PR, that’s advertising really …

That’s what everyone thinks. There is another dimension to PR, genuinely public relations – how your company and everyone in it, including yourself connect with the outside world. Every company has a social role in its community, even if it doesn’t use it to its advantage. It is one of the things I learnt from watching my father, who ran a physical engineering company he had co-founded. He was always...

...very conscious of the company’s connection and duties with regard to its neighbourhood, which helped the business through rough times and good times.

These days, it is easy to think that your company’s sole connection to the locality is to the economy, paying people’s wages and buying services from nearby businesses. Public relations is creating direct connections and dialogue, rather than just expecting the written word in all its forms to present your company and its products to the outside world.

Your customers also have a public face, with different levels of public. Public isn’t just about the media, which, in some ways, is the official ‘public’. Public is every contact with the outside world, whether it’s membership of a professional or industry body, sponsorship of a local football team or a race at the local races, the schools which relentlessly provide endless work experience candidates, specific departments at particular universities, the nearest Accident and Emergency (A&E) department that fixes anyone who falls ill at work or has an accident.

All this, and the political environment too, from your MP to your local planning councillors, even your parish councillors, because at one time or another, you may need to ask... continued on page two >

 

 

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