How To Define Public Relations

How to define pub­lic relations?

Defining pub­lic rela­tions is no easy task.

We are a pro­fes­sion with powers to help brands com­mu­nic­ate bet­ter, but we struggle with defin­ing ourselves — the irony isn’t lost on anyone.

Still, after many years of the­or­et­ic­al and prac­tic­al tri­al-and-error, I’ve cre­ated a defin­i­tion that I find use­ful in my daily PR life.

Here we go:

How I Define Public Relations

Someone once tried to count the num­ber of sug­ges­ted defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions, but they allegedly gave up after find­ing 2,000+ dif­fer­ent attempts. ¹From the early 1900s to 1976, Rex F. Harlow, a well-respec­ted expert on pub­lic rela­tions, gathered around 500 dif­fer­ent defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions (Cutlip et al. 2006).

The story might be an urb­an PR legend, but the point remains the same: Many PR defin­i­tions exist.

With all of those 2,000+ defin­i­tions in mind, what kind of PR blog­ger would I be if I didn’t take a stab at a PR defin­i­tion as well? 

So, here’s how I define pub­lic relations:

How To Define Public Relations

Someone once tried to count the num­ber of actu­al defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions, but they allegedly gave up after find­ing over 2,000+ dif­fer­ent versions. 

Amongst so many defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions, here’s the defin­i­tion that I find to be most useful.

Public Relations (PR) = the stra­tegic and tac­tic­al use of com­mu­nic­a­tion to devel­op and main­tain pro­duct­ive rela­tion­ships with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and publics.

Please note:

Stakeholders in PR = incentiv­ised rep­res­ent­at­ives with vari­ous interests in the organisation.

Influencers in PR = inde­pend­ent gate­keep­ers with audi­ences of import­ance to the organisation.

Publics in PR = situ­ation­al groups with sim­il­ar com­mu­nic­at­ive beha­viours affect­ing the organisation.

Learn more: How To Define Public Relations

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Some Additional PR Definitions

Here are a few addi­tion­al definitions:

“Public rela­tions is the stra­tegic prac­tice of influ­en­cing atti­tudes and beha­vi­or through com­mu­nic­a­tion, which seeks to cre­ate and main­tain mutu­ally bene­fi­cial rela­tion­ships between an organ­iz­a­tion and its pub­lics.”
— Public Relations Society of America

“Public rela­tions is the art and social sci­ence of ana­lyz­ing trends, pre­dict­ing their con­sequences, coun­sel­ing organ­iz­a­tion­al lead­ers, and imple­ment­ing planned pro­grams of action, which will serve both the organ­iz­a­tion and the pub­lic interest.”
— IPR Commission on PR Education

“Public rela­tions is the pro­cess of cre­at­ing, build­ing, and main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with key stake­hold­ers in order to achieve organ­iz­a­tion­al goals and object­ives.”
— Chartered Institute of Public Relations

“Public rela­tions is an organ­iz­a­tion­al func­tion and a set of pro­cesses for man­aging com­mu­nic­a­tion between an organ­iz­a­tion and its pub­lics.”
— International Association of Business Communicators

“Public rela­tions is the man­age­ment func­tion which eval­u­ates pub­lic atti­tudes, iden­ti­fies the policies and pro­ced­ures of an organ­iz­a­tion with the pub­lic interest, and plans and executes a pro­gram of action to earn pub­lic under­stand­ing and accept­ance.”
— Institute for Public Relations

“Public rela­tions is the man­age­ment of com­mu­nic­a­tion between an organ­iz­a­tion and its pub­lics, through the use of tech­no­logy, social media, and oth­er forms of com­mu­nic­a­tion to achieve mutu­al under­stand­ing, real­ize organ­iz­a­tion­al goals, and serve the pub­lic interest.”
— The Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management

PR Resource: Stakeholders in PR

Stakeholders in Public Relations

In PR, we often dis­cuss stake­hold­ers. And our PR spe­cial­isa­tions are named based on which stake­hold­ers we’re respons­ible for man­aging. ²The stake­hold­er mod­el is far from per­fect. There are plenty of over­laps, espe­cially when it comes to media rela­tions. Also, the cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions func­tion is often regarded as an umbrella … Continue read­ing

Here’s the stake­hold­er mod­el in PR:

• Corporate Communications = External and intern­al pub­lics, busi­ness journ­al­ists, reg­u­lat­ory insti­tu­tions, part­ners, sup­pli­ers, vendors etc.
• Investor Relations (IR) = Shareholders, fin­an­cial mar­kets, mar­ket ana­lysts, fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions, trade journ­al­ists etc.
• Media Relations = Journalists, edit­ors, influ­en­cers etc.
• Digital PR = Inbound web traffic, brand com­munit­ies, sub­scribers, fans, fol­low­ers, influ­en­cers, social net­works etc.
• Public Affairs (PA) = Voters, polit­ic­al journ­al­ists, polit­ic­al ana­lysts, colum­nists, interest groups etc.
• Lobbying = Politicians, legis­lat­ors, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, com­mit­tees influ­en­cers etc.
• Internal Communications = Coworkers, poten­tial recruits etc.
• Crisis Communications = Crisis vic­tims, wor­ried pub­lics, the gen­er­al pub­lic, cowork­ers, journ­al­ists, influ­en­cers, cus­tom­ers, share­hold­ers etc.
• Marketing PR = Potential cus­tom­ers, exist­ing cus­tom­ers, trade journ­al­ists, mem­bers, affil­i­ates etc.
• Industry PR (B2B) = B2B cli­ents, B2B pro­spects, trade journ­al­ists, trade organ­isa­tions, niche influ­en­cers etc.

A wide­spread mis­con­cep­tion is that the PR func­tion only deals with journ­al­ists, edit­ors, and influ­en­cers (Media Relations) with­in the scope of attract­ing new cus­tom­ers (Marketing PR). But such work rep­res­ents only a tiny per­cent­age of all the stake­hold­er rela­tion­ships PR pro­fes­sion­als must man­age daily.

Learn more: Stakeholders in Public Relations

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PR Resource: Publics in PR

The Publics in Public Relations

Here’s how to define pub­lics in pub­lic relations:

Publics in PR = a psy­cho­graph­ic seg­ment (who) with sim­il­ar com­mu­nic­a­tion beha­viours (how) formed around a spe­cif­ic issue (why).

Please note:

Psychographic seg­ment = sim­il­ar­it­ies in cog­nit­ive driv­ing factors such as reas­on­ing, motiv­a­tions, atti­tudes etc.

Communication beha­viours = how the pub­lic’s opin­ion is expressed (choice of mes­sage, rhet­or­ic­al fram­ing, and medi­um type).

Specific issue = determ­ined situ­ation­ally by a spe­cif­ic social object, often high on the agenda in news media or social media.

Learn more: The Publics in Public Relations

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