PR

By Julie Wright, President

Sometimes I wish I were a doctor, police officer or bartender so that when asked what I do for a living, my answer wouldn’t produce that awkward pause followed by, “So what is PR exactly?”

A LinkedIn poll found PR Manager to be the seventh most misunderstood position in the workforce. (Fun fact: The poll asked parents to explain what their son or daughter does for a living, and 42 percent of respondents said they couldn’t accurately describe the PR profession. I’m not sure my parents really know what I do, either).

Unexpected NumbersApparently, public relations is a tough concept for many people to grasp. In a way, it falls in the grey area of other practices, such as marketing, advertising and journalism.

Sometimes our tasks overlap and we may take care of a brand’s marketing. Many PR practitioners have writing abilities on par with the best journalists. Yet public relations has its own arena and should not be lumped together with other professions.

For the hundreds of people that are bound to ask you, “PR? What’s that?,” PRSSA developed this crowdsourced definition:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

For a more down-to-earth explanation, you might just say:

“I achieve media coverage for our client partners as well as maintain relationships for them.”

Similar to a marketing professional, we want to improve our clients’ images, yet PR has an entirely different approach. We invest our time in the relationships that make a difference and use these to best help the brand. In helping earn our clients media coverage, we create awareness and hopefully interest from potential customers, donors, investors and others. We’re able to preserve and heighten our clients’ reputations by communicating where their target audiences are.

Sometimes our goals are the same as an advertising campaign’s, but rather than paying to put our clients’ messages out, we earn people’s attention by being exciting, fresh, unique or relevant to their interests.

Sometimes our goals are the opposite of an ad campaign and we’re helping our clients manage unwanted attention. When things go wrong, contrary to popular belief and pulp fiction, we don’t cover things up, but instead attempt to explain the issue in a transparent and ethical way.

Today, we’re not just earning attention and managing reputations through media exposure and special events, but through clever, strategic social media and content creation programs.

Although PR is a very misunderstood profession, it’s an essential part of business for brands to survive and thrive.

 

Check out our related posts below:

An Ode to AP Style

Hashtag Flawless: The #CallMeCaitlyn Transformation is PR Gold

 

A connected and passionate communicator and successful entrepreneur, Julie Wright
leads client strategy development and oversees the hard-working team at (W)right On, inspiring excellence and achievement for the agency’s clients every day. Formerly Director of Marketing for a financial institution with $1 billion in assets under management, Julie served at several public relations agencies in her hometown of Vancouver, B.C. before launching her own agency. She began her career as a journalist, working as a radio news anchor. Today, her knowledge and skill in traditional public relations strategies and marketing communications is matched with her social media and online marketing know-how. Julie is a past chair of the San Diego North Economic Development Council Board of Directors and the President’s University Council, a community advisory group, at California State University San Marcos. She sits on the Board of Trustees of the Tri-City Hospital Foundation and on the advisory board for RSI Systems International, developers of the RoomKey guest experience software for the hospitality industry.
Julie has achieved various recognitions for her community service and leadership, including being named a Woman Who Means Business by the San Diego Business Journal in 2010 and a 40 Under 40 honoree by San Diego Metropolitan in 2006. She received the Fran Aleshire Award for Community Leadership from the alumni of Leadership North County in 2009.
Julie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of B.C. and a Master of Journalism degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Western Ontario. She is a 2003 graduate of the Leadership North County program and is active in its alumni group. Julie has two teenage sons, enjoys running along the Del Mar and Solana Beach coastline and collects frogs and Champagne.

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