At the organisation that I am interning at, the Australian Institute of Technology Transfer (AITT), there are no separate departments incorporated within its organisational structure. Hence, I am currently the only public relations 'ambassador' that my organisation has ever had. I do not see this circumstance as being a challenge to my work experience, rather an opportunity to showcase what I could do to enhance, from a public relations standpoint, the company's pursuit towards achieving set organisational goals. However, it did make me realise how significant it is for a company to put into effect a public relations representative or unit within their organisation to increase their image reputation or to generally make their organisation known to their publics.
AITT, by Australian standards, is a small company, with less than 20 employees in both of its branches, one in Perth and the other in Adelaide. Some of the reasons why many small companies do not have a public relations unit or representative within its establishment is due to the general publics being accustomed to advertising over public relations despite PR being a more cost-effective method for small businesses to raise awareness. If utilised properly, public relations can even be free and vital to a company's growth strategy. For many companies that are on a tight budget, public relations will cost them less for more benefits than advertising can.
Listed below are five of the reasons I feel are very important as to why a company needs to have public relations within their organisation:
1 Creating a brand or image
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) definitely comes to mind when I think of this! It is significant for a company to engage with their consumers which can build trust towards the company and thus strengthen their image and increase the legitimacy of the company's operations and relationship with their target publics. For the trust between the publics and the company to be maintained, the company's operation from small matters to big time partnership dealings needs to be aligned with what the company stands for - namely, their organisational goals, mission and vision!
2 Helping a company 'sail through bad weather'
Having a crisis management unit, which usually falls under public relations is vital to a company's functioning. Often, it is difficult to predict of the unwanted circumstances or sequence of events that could impact a company in a negative way and more often than not, these companies may not have come up with a contingency plan to tackle the set of negative occurrences, unbeknownst of the set of circumstances that are about to inflict them. Public relations not only creates a good image for a company, but it also alleviates the company through a crisis by informing their impacted publics of what the company can do to suffice the majority of the people's questions and needs.
3 Online presence gets better
There's no contention that our lives have definitely been made easier since sites like Google and other search engines came about! We can often search for answers at our fingertips! Many companies out there would like to gain exposure. A public relations team or representative can do the company good in this sense by sorting out data, online materials and any content relevant to the company in a way that makes it more searchable. Search engine optimisation is the reason why certain companies become successful. A public relations unit or representative can help alleviate the company's notability from obscurity, and one of their job scopes is making sure their company pops up noticeably within the first few pages of a search engine so that they are easily picked up on by others.
4 Public relations can outdo advertising and marketing!
If utilised properly, implementing a consistent public relations program can help build commercial awareness of your company's service offerings and products. This might as well be more cost-effective than advertising and marketing efforts. Effective public relations program can lead on to better things for the company such as having more visibility, making the company appear more established and renowned, thus making it easier for the company to secure partnerships, funding and attracting customers and clients.
5 Utilising social media to its fullest extent
Aren't social media sites just wonderful? With the advent of Facebook, Twitter and other prominent social media sites nowadays, people are able to keep up with updates from the company, sometimes in real time and often, for as long as the company maintains their social media sites instead of their operations being something that is only known to only a small percentage of stakeholders involved with such companies before these social media sites came about. Social media contents, if updated regularly, creates a buzz that keeps consumers interested.
There's no denying that public relations is indeed vital to a company's operation, particularly in this day and age where social media can help attract user traffic and thus, increase commercial and brand awareness and inform the publics of the presence of a business/company.
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