I’ve heard someone talking about public relations (PR) when I decided to apply a graduate school. Some companies spent a lot of money in PR in order to get them more attention from the public, obtain good images (although we may think obtaining a good image really depends on sound products or service that a company can provide), and build good relationships with the public.
By sending pitch letters to reporters, conducting campaigns, redesigning logos and slogans and applying all the other strategies and tactics, PR practitioners have spent a great deal of time and used all kinds of resources to do their work.
In my point of view, the benefits will be the results that you are trying to achieve—get more publicity, manage a crises, receive donations and many other different goals.
These are all very ideal situations and PR practitioners are hired to reach these goals. To take an example of getting more publicity, all kinds of tactics are used nowadays. Every time when I watch a video, there will be a advertisement before the video starts. I have to wait till it finishes. And just through these a few seconds, a brand, a new movie or a new product have entered into my brain.
However, the benefits are not necessarily proportional to time and resources donated.
Think about our non-profit client for the research class, Hiscock Legal Aid Society. It has a nice and well organized website, blogs and media pitch for every event they organized. However, they have undergone lack of donors for a long time.
Invisibility is one of the results even PR is operated. What makes things worse is PR may also jeopardize the image of an organization or a person.
Recently, one of my friends is complaining about how some companies misuse social networking websites to promote their products. When a Internet user click one of the “new events” on their homepage, the page is actually not how it appears on the “new events”. Instead, it goes to the social website of a company or a product. It looks like a computer virus because as soon as you enter that webpage, you automatically add it as your “friend”. And it is very hard to remove this “friend” from your friend list.
These companies probably want to get their products being noticed by more net users. However, this is absolutely a bad and unethical way to do this, and people are only going to get mad on these companies and their products.
Benefits or pitfalls? It really depends on how you donate time and resources rather than how many you donate them.
Finally, there is a video for you. Maybe you can get some ideas from it.
Have a nice weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment