Public Relations Are Important For Your Business

There is a lot of talk on the importance of having public relations. Bill Gates is quoted having said, “If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relations.” But really- what is public relations?

Public relations is a long-term process that encompasses communicating to the public, which is designed to develop and build a reputation of a brand.

Some believe that public relations has become the most effective way to build a brand. When you think of brands like Playstation, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, or Costco, they are all wildly well known and very successful, but do little to no advertising. This is possible with public relations. Online advertisements are more of a nuisance than anything, like flies that need to constantly be swatted away.  Public relations enables your brand to build a relationship with the audience and increase awareness of your business, as opposed to advertisements that people just ignore anyway.

It has become routine to do some online research before making a purchase. Public relations helps your business have a presence on search engine sites by posting articles, press releases, video clips, and anything else that could be beneficial to help your company capitalize in online searches.  Sites like Pinterest and Twitter also have a great public relations presence, but they’re not in your face like typical ads.

Public relations is becoming valuable today due to the positive feedback it is receiving.  People are more likely to trust a third party covering a product/service over a faceless advertisement thats sole purpose is to sell that same product.  For example, are you more likely to purchase a product based on a billboard telling you “it’s great!” or a person explaining their experience with the product? Chances are you’ll listen to a person over a billboard.

Rather than spend a lot of money on advertisements, brands are looking to public relations to build their brand and following. Public relations can be much less expensive than advertising, and can be much for beneficial for your business.