Surprisingly, there’s a growing number of people and businesses who believe that public relations (PR) isn’t important. If you work in or close to PR, this may sound completely insane to you. But it’s true. Some are beginning to think that there are better and easier alternatives that take up less time and effort.
But you’d be wrong to believe that PR isn’t important. In fact, I would argue that it’s more important in 2020 now more than ever. Businesses need PR- especially good PR. If you’re unconvinced, here are just three reasons that you need to ensure that your business has PR in place.
1. PR helps maintain your reputation
A business’s reputation is incredibly important. You want customers, followers, executives, and investors to think of your business in a positive light. A bad reputation can result in losing customers and profits, and can subsequently lead to you losing your business. Reputation management can help ensure that your business’s reputation isn’t tarnished- either falsely or otherwise. That’s where PR comes in, as PR people work in reputation management (among other things).
2. PR can prepare you for a crisis
Crises happen. Some are preventable, but others aren’t. Some may be the fault of your business whereas others are through no fault of your own. But in today’s social media age where both true and false information travels in a matter of seconds, you need to prepare for a crisis to happen at a moment’s notice. One of PR’s biggest jobs is arguably crisis management. Having good PR for your business can help navigate you through a crisis, as well as try to get out of it relatively unscathed. As a business owner, you shouldn’t have to live in fear of a crisis happening. Let PR take care of that and help you out, too.
3. PR can help manage your social media
There’s a big misconception that social media is an easy job to do. But if you’ve ever done any sort of social media work, then you know that it can be tricky. Given how important social media has become, you want to have the most qualified individuals in charge of this duty. PR people are good at social media; they want to ensure that your business looks good there. So if you can’t afford to hire both PR people and social media managers, I’d go for the former because they can do both PR and social media work.
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In a time where crises can spread like wildfire and cancel culture can destroy your business before the truth comes out, PR is needed more than ever. Every business- no matter how big or how small- should have solid PR in order to ensure that your reputation is intact, you’re prepared for the absolute worst, and you can manage your social media well. It’s so important that, in the right situation, can make or break or business.
xo,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Sarah Larkin 