PR Agencies vs PR Consultants

What is the difference


Public Relations Agencies:

There are lots of challenges and
opportunities for growth and development  in a PR Agency.

The work is enormous because companies that have in-house public relations departments and those who do not would at one time or the other require the services of an independent PR organisation.

Thus, agencies handle public relations activities of other organisations, corporations, non-profit set ups, governments and
even individuals.

For instance, some corporations may hire a PR Agency to handle its annual report to stockbrokers or its overseas investors. The agency could be hired to partner with other agencies or bodies or even the public relations department of a corporation to do research, planning, communication and evaluation.

Just as it is in advertising agencies, staff of public relations agencies are often assigned to accounts. Usually, an account would include all the public relations activities planned for one particular client.

 Accounts are managed by account executives. It would be their job to research into the public relations problems, write messages, and decide on media and placement.
 They equally do evaluation of such campaigns. It is  common to have public relations staff specialising in various areas of an account.

Some are experts in message designing, media planning
and placement, while others focus on research. In some cases, a staff
could take up more responsibilities than one.

Public relations agencies vary in size. There are some that work as a
small part of big advertising agencies while others are full-fledged, fullblown agencies, yet others are one room agencies.



Independent Public relations Consultants:

A PR practitioner  may equally wish to ply you trade as a one man public relations consultant. Successful public relations consultants are often persons with broad experience having worked in a few agencies and handled several successful accounts.

They are a one-man agency. Very often they specialise in small areas of public relations like crisis communication, speech writing, international public relations, etc.
In this case  the consultant alone bears the responsibility for success or failure.

What Are Media Events ?

 Media Events, as it relates to Public Relations -   are carefully planned activities, put together with a view to generate media publicity.

Kinds of media events:

News conference:

This type of media events are usually held, when an organization has an announcement to make and wants the press to get details of the announcement. It's also an occasion used to answer questions from journalists.

Protests:

Such media events are planned mainly with the sole aim of generating media attention - as it may relate to an issue or cause.

Photo ops:

This type of media event is put together with the specific aim of telling  picture stories in the media.

History of media events:

The history of media events, date back to  the 1940s and the proceeding decades -  as television and radio stations  introduced same-day news cycles.

In recent times, the  emergence of the internet has led  to many media stories being published in realtime - live from the venue of the media event.

Editing strategies in creating a great story

Once a rough draft for an article or press release is finished, the writer should try to set it aside for at least a day and come back to the paper with a fresh mind, this  strategy makes editing easy and is helpful in spotting errors.

Here are a few strategies that could aid that process

1: Read the Paper out loud
In the course of editing if the paper is read aloud slowly, two senses--seeing and hearing--work in tandem. In essence, what one sense misses, the other may pick up.

2: Check the Thesis Statement and Organization
While editing it's important that the writer writes down the thesis on a piece of paper if it is not directly stated in the essay or article. This is with a view to determine if it accurately states the main idea? Is it in fact supported by the paper?

Does it need to be changed in any way? The piece of paper which serves as the guide should also state the main idea of each paragraph under the thesis statement.

Editing also entails that the PR practitioner  analyze each paragraph to determine if it’s relevant to the thesis. It’s important the paragraphs converge in a logical sequence and order.

The writer of the public relations material should remember that he or she is writing for others. No matter how familiar others may be with the material, they cannot get inside the mind of the writer and understand his or her approach to it.

Consequently, the writer has to express himself clearly. As a result, it's useful for the public relations practitioner to read the paper through once, as he keeps in mind whether or not the student or teacher or friend who will be reading it will understand the message.

This brings the following questions: Has the writer said exactly what he wanted to say?

Does the story's development have sufficient details? Is the logic valid?

Are the major points in the story connected?

Are the relationships between them expressed clearly?

Do they all relate to the thesis?



REVIEWING THE STORY'S DICTION

In the course of editing i

t's important that the writer of a story remember that others are reading the story. He should also understand that even the choice of one word can affect the response of readers. The public relations practitioner should anticipate their response and choose the words in the story accordingly.

BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE TO BUTTRESS THIS POINT

Original:
The media's exploitation of the Watergate scandal showed how biased it was already.

Revision version:
The media's coverage of the Watergate scandal suggests that perhaps those in the media had already determined Nixon’s guilt.

In addition to being more specific, the revision does not force the reader to defend the media. In the first example, though the statement is so exaggerated that even the reader who is neutral on the issue may feel it necessary to defend the media. Thus, the writer of the original has made his job of persuading the reader that much harder.

The Publics in PR

The publics in public Relations  are those groups with common interest affected by the policies of an institution, company, profit and non-profit organisations.

Each organisation tends to have its own particular set of target publics. These target groups are normally identified by their involvement in specific situations or issues which are also of concern to the organisation. Each issue, problem of interest creates its own publics.

Some common classifications of publics:

Latent public: This target grouping comprises those affected by an organization's policies, but may not be conscious of it.

Active publics:  This grouping comprises those who are not only aware of how they are affected but take steps to demonstrate it.

Active publics are broken into the following

Hot issue publics: Comprising those interested in only burning issues

Single issue publics:  Comprising those interested in one aspect of an organization's activities.

All issue publics: Comprising those interested in all aspects if an organization's operations.

Aware publics: Comprises those who know they are affected by the activities of the organization, but may not be actively demonstrating it.

Non publics:  Comprises those who show no interest in the matter or activities of the organisation even if they are aware.

Other forms of publics include:

Internal publics: Comprising individuals employed by an organisation.

External publics: This group comprises people and organizations outside of the company that are involved in business activities with an organization.

Publics as it relates to different organizations, may include any of the following groups namely:

Investors, Members, Financial advisers, Volunteers, Suppliers,
Consumers, Multinational bodies,
Regional bodies, Media, Fans, Religious leaders, Opinion leaders,
Mothers, Fathers and Youths, to mention a few.