PRMan

A few weeks back the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) asked the world to re-define PR. A worthwhile activity when you consider their current definition heralds from 1982 – another age compared to what the profession has become today. Its crowd-sourced project is designed to update this and hopefully output the perfect PR definition.

The 1982 definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

Disappointingly though the society has aimed for an evolution of their current definition, seeking ideas within a strict, multiple-choice type sentence.  I imagine they’ve done this for ease of execution but it is somewhat limiting in a world that has changed so significantly. Perhaps a tweeted definition or open text option would have been more fitting for the age.

Either way, within their guidelines, here’s my effort:

Public relations leverages content and communication channels for organisations to raise awareness, illicit action and build relationships for the benefit of their or their clients’ organisations.

With a blank slate, however, I’d go with something like:

PR is strategic multi-channel communication with organisational stakeholders to raise awareness, elicit action and build relationships.

And that fits within a tweet!

With any definition seeking to encompass a whole industry it’s important not to get too specific. There are a few things I’ve highlighted in my definition that I feel are changing PR for the better:

• Multi-channel or platform-agnostic: Obviously with the huge range of tools and tactics out there one can’t be a jack of all trades. However, with traditional spheres of influence declining and ‘stakeholders‘ gaining information from an increasingly diverse range of sources,  PR is rapidly waking up to the necessity of audience centricity. This means media relations is simply one string of today’s PR bow. Increasingly communicators need to employ any number of direct and indirect communication tactics and varying types of content to get noticed.
• Eliciting action: while of course PR isn’t always about eliciting action, the need to effect real change and measure this change, increasingly through direct interaction with audiences, is increasingly vital. With squeezed budgets and a declining appetite for experimentation and innovation, this need will only increase. It’s up to PR to prove its worth.
• Strategy: with the increasing ‘blurring’ of the boundaries of what PR is and does – brought about by the availability of new tools and the changing media landscape – the need to take a lead on strategy is vital to the profession’s future priority. The movement of content to the centre of many organisational communication strategies means PR is perfectly positioned for this. Strategy going forwards means thinking beyond the traditional PR walls and working with whatever partners necessary to create compelling, effective, ROI-driving campaigns.

The PRSA hasn’t yet collated all submissions but soon it’s going to be putting the 10 best up on its microsite for everyone to vote on. If you want a hand in defining the future of PR, keep an eye on the PRSA PR Defined site.

Also feel free to post a comment if you don’t agree with me or would like to add anything.