Tuesday, March 4, 2008

What is PR?

Public Relations sounds more like what Exxon must do when there is an oil spill, or the necessary evil of corporations to "spin" their story. I prefer to call those examples the "spin cycle". Public Relations is defined on wikipedia as the management of internal and external communication of an organization to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities.

How does this apply to you, and why is it so important? Because it's CHEAP, and PRICELESS exposure for your business. Sure you can buy a 30 second spot during the evening newscast, but you can't purchase a story. To actually have the news anchor talk favorably about your business is one of the most powerful means of getting your message out. To have a news editor do a write up on your start-up business, your new employee that you hired, the new truck that your company purchased, the medical fair that is being held in your parking lot, and yes... a news editor actually picked up one of our clients press releases heralding the new carpet that was installed in their hallway (that one suprised me too!)

So how do you go about getting this elusive PR thing done? A shameless plug for Mustard N Relish, you can call us and we'll do the research, the writing, the distribution and follow up. But you wonder, how do you tie everything together in a nice neat little package that looks attractive to the media? Tomorrow, you'll learn the three principles of Public Relations.

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