INDUCTION MANUAL

Induction Manual Public Relation Industry



Induction Manual

Public Relation Industry (Media Relation)

Introduction

Public relations play a pivotal role to build the reputation of a company based on its vision, mission, goals and performance The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, London defines Public Relations is about reputation, the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you”. Public relations practice is the discipline concerned with the reputation of an organisation (or products, services or individuals) with the aim of earning understanding and support.

Integrated public relations communication combines the work of all departmental communication of an organisation in relation to reaching their respective public on the one hand and also promotes public relations culture, within and outside the organisation to persuade and influence the segmented public towards organisational goals on the other hand. (Biagi, 2005:50-78)

Corporate public relations programme either for internal publics or for external publics must he based on a strategic planning to reach all segments of public with good deeds. As part of integrated public relations communication, various media and tactics have to be used to achieve the following five communication objectives:

1. Awareness of the company

2. Customer needs and services

3. Corporate image and reputation

4. Stakeholder's support

5. Company's performance and feedback

PR Budget

A public relations budget is a forecast of expenses that are incurred in the management of a public relations department and execution of its programme. The two basic considerations that go in to the preparation of a public relations budget are: public relations activities planned for the year and the costs involved in executing the programmes. Administrative expenses are also added to the annual budget.

The Department of Information and Public Relations, which is the main agency for dissemination of public information of Government has about millions of dollars as the annual budget. Details of this budget among others include: administration (salaries), films, research and training, advertising and visual publicity, press information services, song and drama, photo services, publications, community, radio and television programme, field publicity, etc. Similarly, each public relations department must have an annual budget. (Caponigro, 2000: 78-85)

PR Department Plan

Planning is a prerequisite for the implementation of any programme or activity, if public relation is to be cost-effective and valuable to the management, it must take its rightful place within the overall strategic development plan. A plan can be prepared based on budget allocation.

There could be a long-term and short-term plan in order to achieve corporate public relations goals. The long-term strategy should address the basic task of total reputation management as a long drawn policy. However, short-term plan envisages immediate results, fur example, press relations campaign for covering an event or product launch. The plan must be approved by the CEO and the Board. Whatever the public relations plan may be, it must be communicated throughout the organisation. The plan must include emergency steps to deal with unexpected crisis situation. (Biagi, 2005:50-78)

Typical contents list for corporate public relations departmental plan are as follows:

• Executive summary ...