Role and Functions of a PR Team

Public relations is defined as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences. Why do companies need PR? What does a PR team do? Let’s discover in this blog post.

Every business needs a good reputation to succeed and prosper. As a company grows, it becomes increasingly prominent in the community in which it operates and serves. And although this depends on several factors, such as quality and reliability, public relations (PR) is one of the pillars for managing a company’s reputation. It allows you to communicate your brand and its values ​​broadly, and create narratives around your products and services.

A well-done PR activity allows the public to understand what your company has to offer. Sounds amazing, right? But do you know about PR? In this blog post, let’s understand PR first, and then discover what PR teams or an online PR service like B2Press provides.

What is public relations?

Simply put, the PRSA (American Public Relations Society) defined PR as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences.

Let's break this down to make it easier to understand the elements of PR:

• Organization: A group of people gathering around a common cause. An organization can be a company, a government, a non-governmental organization (NGO), a political party, or else, it can take many forms.
• Audience: Just like organizations, audiences are multiple and encompass different social sectors. We can think of them as groups of people who interact with a certain organization.
• Communication process: Like every form of communication, PR activity involves at least two parties (in practice, there are multiple parties). These parties, which are organizations and audiences, relate in different ways to establish exchange processes. (Quite the opposite, non-linear processes happen spontaneously and multilaterally. PR emerges as a way of understanding them and optimizing the relationship between the various agents involved.)
• Exchange relationships: Organizations and audiences interact all the time through various dynamics that can add value to both parties.

In this sense, PR emerges as a way of organizing relationships and exchanging processes between organizations and audiences, generating benefit and value for both parties.

Organizations benefit as they are able to transmit their message, and generate a positive perception of the brand and services.
Audiences are now able to have a more transparent view of organizations and charge them for the services offered and positions made.

Objectives of a Public Relations Team

PR has the function of analyzing the organization in its various dimensions and possibilities to establish strategic plans that transmit the best message and image of the company. The PR team is a communication leader and works strategically in the most diverse fields of the company.

PR professionals are the key players for a company. They centralize the different communication demands that - together - affect the business situation.

All these demands make up the PR agenda, which is then responsible for making them happen in the best possible way. This means protecting, maintaining and/or creating a good image through the media with the public.

They need to relate directly and clearly with the public, in order to strengthen relations and avoid “noise” which can sometimes occur in the form of a “PR crisis”.

Although each company has different purposes when creating a public relations plan, in general, these are some of the common objectives when thinking about a PR strategy:

1. Build the public image of a company

Public relations is an excellent tool to publicize a recently created company or a business expansion, since by generating messages or concrete actions an idea can be formed in the minds of the audience.

2. Promote a product or service

Through certain actions, public relations can publicize a product or service and thus build a base of potential customers.

3. Generate trust in a brand

By creating a public relations strategy, you convey a message that amplifies what is being said about a company or product. That way, it is easier for the audience to trust it and become an expert on the topic.

4. Strengthen the image of an organization in front of an audience

A PR team is responsible for projecting a unified image of a company to a target audience. This unification is useful for strengthening the company's image and maintaining consistent messages, and reinforces the idea or value wanted to be associated with the brand.

5. Communicate the values ​​and mission of a business

If the audience does not yet know the values ​​and mission of a business, PR helps make these known and appreciated by the target audience, achieving this through press releases, events and other PR tools or campaigns.

6. Improve the relationship with the media

Whether traditional or digital, having a public relations team working in-house or as an outsourced partner can help maintain a strong presence on the media agenda, improving dialogue and perception of a brand. B2B companies can benefit greatly from such partnerships by ensuring they stay current and positively represented in the media. Collaborating with experts like Online PR Service B2Press can provide the necessary expertise and access that may not be available in-house.

7. Create conversation around a product, service or brand

Maintaining a public relations strategy is useful for getting an audience to talk about a brand, maintaining its presence in the media and hopefully influencing the decisions of potential consumers.

8. Prevent possible communication crises

During a communication or media crisis, having a public relations team is useful to know how to lessen the impact or, if possible, prevent the message from being amplified and viral. In this way you can ensure the good reputation of your brand.

How does PR fit into a marketing and communications strategy?

Public relations is defined as the discipline that establishes a relationship and mutual cooperation between an organization and its public. Thanks to all the actions encompassed by this area, a company aims to transmit a clear, transparent and trustworthy image to its external (customers, suppliers, media...) and internal (each of the people who are part of the company) audience.

Marketing and Communication are all about Public Relations. Even if the professionals of the PR team does not speak directly to the public — like a spokesperson — they have a crucial role in defining factors such as the tone and voice of the brand, in addition to implementing strategies that optimize the company's dialogue with the target audience.

Therefore, these professionals keep an eye on trends and always seeks strategies that can optimize marketing and communication activities, talking directly with the client and implementing standards that optimize the work of these sectors.

What is the role of PR in the corporate world?

To delve deeper into our objective of understanding what PR is, let's see how this area plays in the business ecosystem.

Basically, PR professionals are about influencing, engaging and building relationships with stakeholders. This is all to shape and frame the public perception of an organization.

In detail, PR strategy typically covers:

• Anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes and issues that may have an impact, for better or worse, on companies’ operations and plans
• Advising executive boards regarding decisions, actions and communications — including crisis communications — taking into account public ramifications and the social or citizenship responsibilities of corporations.
• Contributing to the construction, maintenance and protection of the reputational legacy of companies and their spokespersons.
• Continually researching, conducting and evaluating action and communication programs to achieve informed public understanding, necessary to achieve strategic objectives.
• Planing and implementing the organization’s efforts to influence and even change public policies.
• Prevent market segments sensitive to collective vision from being “penalized” with regulations and legislation that hinder business activities.
• Supervising the creation of content for - among other purposes - boosting the engagement of customers and prospects with the products and services offered and much more.

In today’s increasingly digital world, where digital marketing has an increasing share of company budgets, the loss of importance of traditional media and the rise of online platforms have increased the importance of online PR. Sometimes it may not be possible to establish an in-house PR team, or it may be difficult to recruit a team of the desired size and expertise. In such cases, collaborating with a competent and reputable company such as Online PR Service B2Press can be a valuable solution. B2B companies, just like their B2C counterparts, need to maintain a strong media presence, and partnering with a professional PR team, whether in-house or outsourced, can significantly improve their media relations and public image.