What Is Public Relations?

As we've seen, there's quite a zoo of marketing animals to use to promote your Yahoo! store. But what is the difference between advertising, promotion, publicity, media relations, and public relations? How do they stand apart from each other?

Here's a common story from the PR industry that can help clarify the difference.

Once upon a time, the circus came to town. To drum up business, the circus promoters put up posters around the city that read, "The Circus Is Coming to Town." Okay, so they weren't great on copy writing. At any rate, we call that advertising. On the day the circus opened, posters announcing the circus were put on an elephant and paraded through town. Animals are great at capturing attention. That's promotion. At one point, the elephant ran amuck and thundered through the mayor's flower garden. That's called publicity. And if you can get the press to publish the story on page one, that's media relations.

If you are able to get the mayor to smile about the incident, that's public relations!

The Importance of the Press Release

Public relations, or PR, is usually an afterthought at most e-business websites today. Now, every business wants and needs free publicity, but sprinkling a few press releases or links to news articles on a Web page does not make public relations. PR is one of the most misunderstood and, at the same time, most valuable marketing tools an e-business can have. And one of the most important elements of this tool is the online press release and the press room. A proper online press roomoften the forgotten stepchild of e-businesscan be a source of important publicity and a resource for journalists.

But online PR is fraught with misconceptions. The biggest misconception consists of writing an ill-conceived press release of little interest but to the CEO, and emailing or faxing it to as many editors and reporters as one can think of. This misconception is followed closely behind by the next: Editors and reporters will actually write stories about you from these releases. PR professionals know better. Press releases do little for your business anymore because the "publish and praysend and forget" strategy of old no longer works. In addition, bombarding journalists with press releases can actually harm the reputation of your company with editors and reporters.

Does that mean you give up on writing them? Of course not. If press releases are conceived well and sent out as a part of a comprehensive promotional program, they have their uses.

We look at that a bit later.