The three elements of today’s public relations
My dad always thought I worked in advertising.
Until the day he died seven years ago he thought I created ads. Oh, I tried on many occasions to explain what I did as a PR pro but in the end it was easier for him to process it as placing ads. Of course what I really did — especially in the world of media relations — was convince a reporter or editor to write/create their interpretation of the story I pitched them. And then hope the final product was close enough to what I thought would make my client happy.
How the world, and public relations world, has changed in those seven years. And oh how I wish dad was still alive because it is so much easier to explain things now.
My colleague Greg Surber recently wrote a blog post titled “The EOP Era of Public Relations.” It is must read. It explains the new earned (traditional media relations), owned (the ability to write your own content and control where it lives) and, yes, paid media (the need to use advertising to make sure the right people see the right content at the right time).
Obviously, one blog post is enough to lay things out but doesn’t provide enough space to take a deeper dive into each discipline.
So our entire team at The Hodges Partnership has created the soon-to-be-released, “The EOP Playbook.” In it we take a look at each element, talk about how it/they can be applied, and explain how they work together to form the backbone of the current day practice of public relations.
We’ve come a long way in seven years. I think dad would finally get it. 🙂
Jon Newman
In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.
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