What Exactly is Public Relations?
Don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you with definitions and evaluations over what we should and shouldn’t be doing as PR professionals. Instead, I’m going to bore you by talking about myself… something I don’t do all that often here.
I got into PR in perhaps an unusual way. Frankly, I didn’t even understand what PR was until shortly before I switched to a Public Relations major in college.
Let’s backtrack:
I actually started college majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I loved it. However, I had some big personal and family issues just before going back for a semester one Fall which really had me off my game. I was depressed, and just couldn’t seem to get into my classes (this isn’t a sob story… everything worked out perfectly in the end). Basically, I bombed a semester (and to put it simply… that wasn’t at all like me academically).
At that time, I was majoring in engineering and minoring in business. I changed over to a business major with a PR minor. I didn’t know much about PR at that point. All I knew was that I’d engineered a nifty optical sensor device with a team for a local nonprofit (for the record, “field trips” to Lowes are fun), and we had the chance to present it on the local TV news program. I liked promoting what we’d created about as much as I liked actually creating it, and gave the PR minor a shot.
My PR professor for my intro to PR course was really the reason I switched to a PR major. He was just an outstanding teacher. So anyway, that’s the gist of how I got into PR in the first place.
How I got involved in PR isn’t the important part though… it’s what I realized in my jump from engineering to PR: they were essentially the same thing. I’m a problem-solver. Whether I ended up solving problems with my hands or with my mouth really didn’t matter.
Engineers have to understand the needs of a market in order to create something they’ll buy or use or trust. In PR we have to understand the needs and motivations of an audience, to develop a message they’ll understand, relate to, and also trust. So in reality, with all of the talk lately about what we should “call” PR, and what it really is, I say that this is what Public Relations really is: it’s “communications engineering.” We design; we create; we build; we maintain; we repair… We engineer.
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Comments
It’s not meant to be a “definition” Geoff… just drawing parallels. I made it clear I wasn’t trying to “define” anything right in the first sentence. And newsflash: “communications” involves enormously more than messages. As a matter of fact, it involves everything you mentioned. Try building and maintaining relationships without solid communication. And no… bloggers and communities don’t “drive PR;” they contribute to it.
I wonder how many people make the transition to PR from other areas.
I switched to being a PR major the second semester of my sophomore year. Halfway through my senior year, I realized that I couldn’t handle all the smiling faces and adjectives and decided that I would go into journalism instead. I still graduated with the degree because I didn’t want to stay another 2 years, but I was hellbent on not getting into PR. Then I realized that I really don’t like journalism.
A couple years later I stumbled upon my current job, finally finding a type of PR that allows me to be as cynical and straightforward as I am in real life.
And what interests me is how a high Analytical - usually a requirement for an engineer - can make the transition to such an Expressive career. Clearly the “down-to-earth” approach might be evidence of a strategy to overcome this?
It’s naive to say there’s no control. You control your message. You have at least some control over how it’s disseminated. When things happen that are out of your control, you control your reactions. You control your overall strategy, even if it has to be dynamic in ways. You control whether or not you’ll even make your message available through new outlets or old, whether or not you’ll join the “conversation,” or whether you’ll just sit back and let people talk without offering a response, solution, etc. Not being able to control everything doesn’t mean there’s no control.
If there is no “control” then our clients don’t need us, do they?
The very fact that we plan PR strategies to support the objectives of our clients implies intent to control outcomes — at least to the degree we’re able to. For example, when a client is targeted (negatively) by bloggers and activists, we jump into the conversation in hopes of “controlling” the damage and influencing the discussion. These are not dirty words, rather they’re part of the job description of an advocate.
I believe in the symmetrical model that achieves outcomes through 2-way communication and relationship building. But our objective as PR people isn’t just to “chat with folks.” Our job is to change attitudes and behaviors in a way that helps our clients solve problems. That brings us back to simple definition of PR that I set forth in my classes and the one Jenn set forth at the start of her post.
Caveat: PR can’t help a client who is intent on doing wrong by customers, employees and neighbors, etc. But we can be ethical advocates. Just be careful whom you work for.
Jennifer, we have choices. Not necessarily control. Too often pr people waste energy and time trying to shape events out of our control. We can change context. The best strategy is when we wisely make decisions between what we can control, what you can merely affect, and what you must accept. Engineering sounds fabricated versus natural flow of conversation.
Lauren, no matter how you spin it, you can’t say there’s no control. Even if you take out everything I’ve said, you still control your initial actions, words, etc., which is the basis of everything that comes after.
And for the record, engineering isn’t as “fabricated” as you may think. I wouldn’t expect people who haven’t experienced both to understand all of the parallels. It’s just as much of a “conversation.” You research, you communicate with your target audiences, you develop something that (hopefully) meets their needs, solves a problem, etc. You continue to interact and communicate, feedback goes back to the engineers, they fix problems, change designs, make updates / upgrades, and try again. It’s as much about a “natural flow of conversation” as PR is; you just don’t see it as much on the public side unless you’re participating in it. Without that conversation (with everyone from company executives to the target market to government officials), engineers couldn’t do their job.
I see the difference between Jenn’s view and Lauren’s as 80% semantic, 20% philosophical.
When we discuss influencing human behavior in a free society, “control” in the pure sense isn’t possible. But there is an element of “control” throughout this discussion if you look for it. We all seek to influence events.
Lauren says it’s not necessary to “control.” But then she says “We can change context.” Isn’t that a form of control? She says we “wisely make decisions between what we can control, what you can merely affect.” When we affect something, are we not — in some way — attempting to control the outcome to some degree?
It was Ed Bernays who introduced the idea of “engineering” to the PR biz with his 1955 book, “The Engineering of Consent.” While Ed was both a brilliant strategist and manipulative propagandist, he understood the need for organizations to listen and to adapt to the needs of their publics. That adaptation strategy is central to his premise that organizations thrive only when they earn the “consent” of their publics.
Bernays influenced public attitudes and behaviors as effectively as anyone who’s ever worked in this business. But he never “controlled” the choices people made. He influenced them.
Great? Another definition. Unfortunately, with this one, where’s the relationship engineering? Relationships with reporters, analysts, speaking organizations, awards organizations, bloggers and communities drive PR, not messages. Messages matter in some cases, but always matter more when their is a relationship.