Corporate Philanthropy

In all gift-giving traditions there is in fact, an equal or opposite effect upon the giver as with the receiver. The giver, even with charity or volunteering opportunities experiences feelings of fulfillment even without reciprocal gifting. Though return is “expected” in modern society, most of all the acknowledgment of well-doing is probably the more desirable reciprocation.

The philanthropy of Home Depot is a great representation of strategic giving, by incorporating employee participation into their charitable conquests they are not only presenting the company in a desirable light, but showing that their corporation as a whole are world conscious. These qualified employees have understanding of the materials used and are successfully building homes for those in need. This reflects well upon Home Depot’s company persona.

Exxon/Mobile utilizes their logo and giving scope which can also be considered strategic, though not in the same way that Home Depot has done so. They support tigers and their environment simply because of the logo that they use. A more strategic charity opportunity such as cleaning up after off-shore oil drilling could be considered and would correlate more directly with what the company as a whole actual is.

Rumors, a local Richmond used clothing boutique has a strategically placed clothing drop box for charity outside of their storefront. I consider this to be a realm of  strategic giving because it is so convenient for patrons to donate what they can’t sell to Rumors as consignment. To be able to not only profit from used clothes, but utilize the consumer’s unneeded extra articles of clothing for charity is as strategic as it gets.

5 Sites PR People Should Use

I think that as a modern PR practitioner, many mediums of social media must be utilized to actively communicate with your publics. Many social news and social media sites can be confusing and aggravating. The following 5 tools/services are my top pics for PR work.

TWITTER

Twitter is a real-time social networking tool that allows you to post updates, quotes, and links in 140 characters. This is a helpful for PR practitioners for promotion, product updates, reviews, linking your public to anything involving your client and is your best bet for a quick PR power play. Twitter is fully accessible to mobile phones and can be one of the most immediate platforms for your publics. People can “follow” your twitter feed, which makes your updates appear on their homepage.

FACEBOOK

Although Facebook is generally associated with the younger set of High School/College Students, more businesses are beginning to use this form of mass social media to communicate their ideas, events and products. Facebook is universal and easy to locate people or companies by name and also is a platform that gives a live feed directly to a person’s homepage, much like twitter. Facebook is an efficient way to introduce a company, product or  idea to a large amount of people. Advertisements can be purchased as well to appear on facebook’s homepage.

DIGG

Digg.com is a social news website that allows you to not only keep up with the most popular stories posted, but to submit links and stories for others to view. A special concept to this website is posts are voted upon, and only the most “Dugg” stories appear on the homepage. Submitting stories or links pertinent to your clientele is important and Digg.com is a nice venue to reach a large audience, especially if they are “Dugg”.

GOOGLEREADER

Googlereader is my preferred aggregator for RSS feeds, it’s simple and easy to use. In the realm of PR you have to pay close attention to the media and trends in media. RSS feeds allow you to follow a number of websites to ensure you catch important updates or new posts. It allows you to stay current and informed and manage your preferred sites or clients easily.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

SEO allows you to search specifically for when your client or public appears on the internet. This will be useful not only to keep up with demographics and ideas of your public, but will help PR professionals handle crises better. To know where and when your client is mentioned will help to successfully manage their campaign.

Agenda-Setting v. Uses and Gratifications

In Communication Theory many different models must be considered to have a well-rounded and functional understanding of mass media. Two of these theories are Agenda-Setting and Uses and Gratifications.

The Uses and Gratifications Theory places more focus on the consumer, rather than the message that is being relayed. Analyzing what people do with the media that they are fed is more useful to this model than what the media can do to an audience. In this model the audience take an active role in their relationship with media.

In the Agenda-Setting Hypothesis the media steers it’s audience in the direction of what to consume as information. The media does not tell you WHAT to think, but the things to think about it. This model offers opinion leaders to influence and interpret the information presented by the mass media. This provides a credible source to ensure the message. This can have limited effects.

These two theories are related in the sense that neither is a propaganda-style model. Both models leave the ultimate response to media up to the consumer. The Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication and mass media because it focuses on the way the audience consumes the message. Agenda-Setting Theory is an example of how the media works to shape public interest, though the audience interprets it according to their own beliefs ultimately.

Public Relations Practitioners are present in both models, but more prevalent in Agenda-Setting, where their ideas and campaigns will eventually affect the consumer opinion. In Uses and Gratifications Theory the audience and media have more of a mutual relationship. In Media Dependency the audience will trust the authority of mass media in accordance with lack of personal knowledge. PR practitioners will also be much more prominent in crisis or emergency situations, where the professional can shape or tone the content.

Public Relations vs. Marketing/Advertising

Public Relations is the act of  managing and maintaining the relationships an organization has with it’s publics in order to facilitate success. Marketing and advertising should exist under the umbrella of public relations, to branch off and focus on the consumers. Marketing and advertising are tied to promotion and placement of the product in regards to the public. These two very important aspects fit under the umbrella of public relations due to their shared desired outcome-the success of the organization.

To say that marketing and advertising were the end product of public relations would be unfair-they are included in the process of public relations. A PR team must first research their audience and client. The absolute knowledge of a company can be what makes a successful ad campaign or genius marketing agenda. Planning the strategies that will meet the communicative needs of the organizations will begin to determine what roles or actions will be taken on by marketing and advertising. The process of communicating an organization’s message  will be taken on by marketing and advertising, working in accordance with the overall PR plan. The public relations team will then evaluate if the planned strategies were effective. If the strategies need to be adjusted to better the success of the organization, this process will start over again.

Edward Bernays thought of PR as engineering the way that people think, in accordance with their best interest-of course. Bernays went as far as to call PR professionals “social scientists” who advise their clients how to best influence their consumers. Although a slightly negative view of what PR specialists do, Bernays understood the power that a good PR agenda can have. PR professionals use advertising and marketing as tools to reach their consumers.

The major difference between PR and advertising is that advertising is paid space. Fixed amounts of space or time in various locations are used to benefit the client, these temporary spaces in mass mediums are costly but highly effective. Advertising money fuels everything from magazines to radio. In PR, publicity is only gained if the consumer (editors of magazines or news programs) deems it newsworthy or relevant. Floating rates may be charged but publicity is not bought like ad space. Advertising deals mostly with mass media, but public relations must work sufficiently in forums big and small. They are closely related and often work off of each other.

Public Relations deals largely with building relationships “generating goodwill” for the organization. PR is not so focused on the consumer or the product but the public. In a broader view, public relations, marketing and advertising all blur each other’s boundaries. Marketing is exclusive to selling products and services and ensuring the public receives the advertising and public relations efforts put forth.

Public Relations is the umbrella term, which encompasses marketing and advertising. All three professions are important in the communication process and somewhat dependant on the other two specialties. After public relations professionals assess the situation and begin planning, in comes advertising with material tools to communicate a message or product to the consumer. Marketing comes last, to ensure success of the advertising and PR strategies.