You Better Watch Out!

At its best, public relations is a management function. We manage the flow of information between our organization and all of its publics. We manage our image. We manage inside and out in order to effectively convince our publics.

To effectively manage, we as public relations practitioners are required to know everything possibly related to the company we represent.

When it comes to public relations in politics, the practitioner is responsible for not only the candidate and campaign, but the candidate’s family, news in the district and the party they associate with.

In large corporations, practitioners must be aware of the market, competitors, vendors and more. Take Mattel and their lead scare with China as an example- what went wrong in China threatened to destroy the company’s market around the globe in the United States.

This week I worked on a proposal for a candidate with the media communications firm I work for. We research the candidate, his competition, his past history, the district, the opinion of the media, the issues and what might happen in the future to affect this campaign. We basically build a comprehensive book. We aim to walk in and not only know the details but be able to connect the dots- all before even receiving the job.

The hard part is that even after dedicating up to one week of work and preparing and presenting, we might not get the job.

Public relations isn’t only about press releases and spinning scandals. We know (and do) a lot more than most people think!