Anyone working in marketing knows that connecting with your audience is critical. But with a million different avenues to choose from, it can feel impossible to know where to start. There are many categories of public relations to consider.
Successfully focusing on even just one of the many categories of public relations can take your brand to an entirely new level. But with so many options, where do you start, and which is right for your business?
The Categories of Public Relations
There are essentially seven categories of public relations to consider. Here’s an overview of each.
1. Media Relations
Media relations is about building strong relationships with journalists, bloggers, and media outlets to gain positive press coverage. You can accomplish this by sending press releases about noteworthy events or stories involving your company or executives. A strong media relations strategy can result in features, interviews, and reviews that increase brand awareness.
2. Community Relations
Solid community relations build a strong, trustworthy bridge between you and your target audience. Building authentic connections within your community leads to loyalty, trust, and long-lasting positive brand sentiment.
Community relations involves actively engaging with local communities through sponsorships, charity events, and volunteer work. This showcases your company’s dedication to making a positive impact. It’s most effective when your company has a real passion for the cause.
3. Public Affairs & Government Relations
Navigating government and policy can be tricky for businesses. That’s why this area of PR focuses specifically on building relationships with government officials and policymakers. You’ll want to leverage public affairs strategies to effectively advocate for policies and regulations beneficial to your business.
However, many times it’s not as straightforward as your needs versus theirs. Finding areas where both your needs and the needs of lawmakers intersect can be an effective way to advance policy changes that benefit both parties.
Successfully crafting your strategy within these intersections often leads to more positive, sustainable results. Working with the people in charge rather than against tends to result in fewer roadblocks. This often involves building coalitions, attending industry events, participating in government consultations, and more.
4. Crisis Communications
Whether you’re a small startup or an international conglomerate, crisis can strike at any moment, sending your carefully curated brand image up in flames. How well (or poorly) a crisis is handled has a direct impact on how quickly a company recovers. Public image is everything and in today’s climate, things go from bad to worse at lightning speed because of social media.
You need only look at the case of Johnson & Johnson who faced a major crisis when asbestos was found in their baby powder to understand the importance of taking quick and effective action. Consider that 63% of the value of most companies lies solely in public perception to see how vital it is to prioritize this.
Having crisis communication teams at the ready can mean the difference between success and failure in the face of disaster. Develop a crisis communications plan before a problem arises to minimize damage to your reputation, rebuild trust with stakeholders, and ensure business continuity. This proactive approach allows you to respond effectively to negative situations and control the narrative surrounding them. But, crisis communication isn’t just about navigating negative press, it’s equally about having solid operational resilience.
That’s what sets companies up for long-term success – making them anti-fragile in the face of disaster. These are the companies that not only weather the storms but emerge even stronger on the other side. Proactively considering what those potential threats might be is often the key differentiator.
5. Social Media Communication
This is perhaps the area most familiar to people in the current digital age. Everyone understands how effective public relations is on social platforms like Instagram, Twitter (X), and TikTok. This involves creating compelling content on social platforms to engage with followers, share your brand message, and cultivate relationships with customers and influencers. This is especially important because the majority of people today are present on these digital platforms. This means your message has an even higher chance of being seen, interacted with, and acted upon if you’re strategizing effectively.
6. Employee Communications
Employees are brand ambassadors. As such, prioritizing their experience with your company through constant and clear internal relations and communications is vital. Internal employee communication involves establishing clear, transparent, and regular communications between different departments and leadership within your organization.
Internal communications foster a positive work environment and helps retain valuable employees which benefits a company’s bottom line. Consider it an investment in your company culture, which has a significant impact on your public image. After all, disgruntled former (or current) employees can do considerable damage in today’s digital age where everyone has a platform.
7. Strategic Communications
Strategic communication is the bedrock from which all other areas of public relations function. Think of it as the big picture plan encompassing all of your communication efforts to accomplish goals. Successfully executing a strong strategic communications plan should align with your company’s overall goals and values.
Some key goals this area focuses on are:
| Type of Goal | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Short Term | Goals a company aims to accomplish in under 12 months | Increasing brand awareness of a specific product by 25% by year’s end. |
| Mid Term | Goals a company aims to achieve over the next few years. They build upon the short-term ones. | Increasing market share within the industry from 10% to 15% within the next 36 months |
| Long Term | Larger, even more impactful goals that may take many years or even a decade to achieve | Becoming the leading industry expert and trusted resource over the next decade |
Choosing the Best Category of Public Relations for Your Company
These communication objectives require careful consideration and planning across all other areas of PR. So, consider what categories of public relations you should prioritize before beginning this step. The reason being, each type of communication should align with your company’s strategic objectives.
Additionally, consider which of these types of communications would serve your unique circumstances best and which strategies resonate most strongly with your overall vision. There’s also something to be said for enlisting PR professionals that have extensive experience in both content marketing as well as PR. Finally, recognize the importance of media relations from individuals with a background in journalism as those professionals bring valuable insight from their unique firsthand experience working within these sorts of entities.
Conclusion
In a competitive landscape, knowing the various categories of public relations, such as social media communications, strategic communication, community relations, media relations, and crisis communications can elevate your brand and give you an advantage. For companies looking for significant, impactful growth, incorporating a minimum of three areas within PR will be important. Building strong relationships within all these categories is crucial to long-term, sustainable growth, particularly for brands navigating a quickly evolving digital landscape. The companies who succeed long-term make it a point to incorporate this into all areas of marketing.
