Public Relations and Social Responsibility

This assignment delves into the core principles of Public Relations (PR) and examines the crucial role of social responsibility within this field. It analyzes how corporations communicate their social responsibility initiatives through their websites and explores the influence of public perception on these efforts. The assignment also considers the ethical implications of PR, particularly in sensitive areas like tobacco control and men's health promotion. Lastly, it investigates the evolving landscape of PR with a focus on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, highlighting how organizations engage stakeholders in new and dynamic ways.

Public relation and Promotion

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Evaluate the role and discuss the importance of public relations as a promotional tool to........1
Undertake an audit of the chosen destination environments within the context of setting.........2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Identify and analyse the key media that can be used in your campaign and assess the..............3
Evaluate the appropriateness of the media that you have chosen for the PR campaign.............5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
Review the effectiveness of your Public Relations campaign and briefly discuss what.............6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Public relation (PR) is a promotional tool which can be used by the organisations and
individuals to communicate and interact with their stakeholder and public. A PR specialist
communicate with their target audience through various tools directly and indirectly. There are
various PR tools and techniques which involved newsletters, press releases, public appearances
etc. PR helps to build and maintain the long term relationship with their stakeholder like
investors, shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees, government and public as a whole.
This report is based on Visit Britain which is a national tourism agency of UK (Newsom, Turk,
and Kruckeberg, 2012). Main objective of this agency is to promote travel in the UK and adding
the value of UK tourism. The agency having various partner agencies which can help to promote
their tourism in various countries. The purpose of this report is to understand the significance of
public relation in order to make tourists aware and to assess communication gap in between
agency and public.
TASK 1
Evaluate the role and discuss the importance of public relations as a promotional tool to
be applied in your chosen seaside tourist destination and analyse the diversity of publics
or audiences, including the current and potential visitors and other stakeholders within a
travel and tourism context.
Communication is essential for each and every organisation with their stakeholders.
These stakeholders are customers, employees, investors, government, suppliers and society as a
whole (Spicer, 2013). Promotional tools can help to make an effective communication on regular
basis with different stakeholder. Public relation is a tool which is having a great role to promote a
tourism destination. There are various importance of PR tools in the business. There are
following importance of PR tools is given below:
Building relationship: It is important for a tourism agency to build and maintain the long term
relationship with various stakeholder. There are different stakeholders which can affect the
tourism business directly or indirectly. Customers are valuable for tourism industry as they are
the king of market. Strong communication can help to aware of their current and potential
customer about their tourism destination (Kunczik, 2016).
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Public image building strategy: Public relation also help to create and build a sound image of that
particular destination as well as support in making appropriate business strategies. It helps to
build a strong image for their tourism destination in an effective way. It helps to make a strong
image which can help to increase the number of tourists in the nation (Grunig, Hon and Toth,
2013).
Helps to outreach events: Public relation experts can sometimes conduct and arrange events in
order to increase their sales and revenue. For example national agency can sponsor an special
Olympics event which can attract more potential tourist.
Helps in building media relation: Media is an important tool which can be used by various
business units to promote their products and services. It is a vital tool for public relation
departments (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). It can help the national tourism agency to use these
media platforms to advertise their tourist destinations more effectively.
Social media: Social media is one of the best tool to communicate with their various
stakeholders. There are different social media platforms which can involve Facebook, You-tube,
Instagram, Twitter etc. These internet platform can used be the agency which can proves to be a
cost effective method for greater outreach among different customers.
Undertake an audit of the chosen destination environments within the context of setting
relevant goals and objectives for the campaign by applying a range of PR and promotion
skills and produce a public relation plan
Public relation is an important function in the tourism industry. It requires a large number
of skills which can help to make PR more effective. These skills can involve writing, time
management, efficiency and different personal attributes like creativity, flexibility etc. (Cornish
and Ghosh, 2007). These skills help to tourist agencies in making and developing an effective
public relation plan. According to the marketing experts a well-planned public relation can be
more effective than advertising. It involves the various stages which as given below:
Defining the goals and objectives: It is important for a business unit to define the goals and
objectives of public relation plan. Main key objective of a PR plan is to make awareness of the
chosen destination. As per the national tourist agency's point of view, main objective of a PR
plan is to develop the value of tourist destination and increase sales and profits for their
organization.
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Focus on the target audience: This is the second stage of a PR plan. It is important to define the
target people which can help to develop strategies. Stakeholder can involve current customers,
potential customers, government, employees, investors and other target groups can be targeted
by the agency (Capriotti and Moreno, 2007).
Develop the strategies and tactics: It is the next step in which strategies and tactics can be
developed by organization. For example: tourist agency wants to focus on the niche market for
their chosen destination, now the marketing experts are required to make strategies for higher
level and need to use tactics at the middle and lower level. Accordingly, they can make their
marketing strategies.
Draft the key messages: The message which can be send to the large number of public, PR
experts requires to maintaining the consistency (Waters and at. el., 2009). For example, tourist
agency might tell potential customers to conduct an event at Black sea pool in the next coming
months. Agency can send this message to the public at large and tell them about their upcoming
event.
Develop a detailed task list: Agency can implement the public relation tactics with their
maximum efficiency. The success of public relations plan largely depends on the ability to make
deadlines stick.
Make a crisis planning: It is one of the essential parts of PR plan. Agency is required to identify
and analyse all potential negative scenario and need to take suitable actions for them (Bayer and
Stuber, 2006). It is important to ensure that each and every member of the plan will be aware of
crisis and its response and make an effective test run of crises plan. It can help to reduce the
possible losses of PR plan.
Review the overall plan: This is the final stage of PR process. In this stage, higher authorities can
make a review for this plan. It can help to improve the PR process. Once the PR plan is
completed, experts can measure the overall success of this plan. It also helps in making the future
plan.
TASK 2
Identify and analyse the key media that can be used in your campaign and assess the
relationship between your department (public relations) and the media.
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An effective PR helps to the company to build a sound relationship between public and
the firm. To maintain long term relationship with the target audience is very essential. There are
various tools and media which can be used by an organization (Cattell and at. el., 2008). To
promoting selected destination is essential with the public to aware them towards their campaign.
There are the following tools which can be used by Visit Britain:
Attendance at public events: Public events can help for the company to make an effective
communication with the public at large. There are various events which can be used by the PR
experts to promote their tourist destination more effectively. In order to attract more public
attention public events is one of the effective tool. For example at any sports event can be used
by the firm to promote Black sea pool as a attractive tourist destination (Schäferhoff, Campe and
Kaan, 2009).
Press releases: It is another tool which can be used by the business unit. There are various
information which is communicated on a regular basis through TV, radio, newspaper and
magazines. These media platforms having a great impact than advertisement. These tools can be
more appropriate as compare to other media tools. But these are quite expensive for the agency.
When firms are using these kind of platforms such information more meaningful than other
media (Smith and Robertson, 2008). It is one of the oldest form of public relation.
Newsletters: Newsletters are one of the common methods to communicating various information
for their stakeholder. It is one of the common marketing strategies but in PR it can be used by the
experts to sharing the relevant information about their tourist destination with their target
audiences.
Blogging: There are various public which are using the internet, to reach these audience, PR
specialists can use digital form of newsletters and press releases. They can also use blogging and
micro blogging. It allows to the PR experts to build relationship with their stakeholder and
develop two way communication (Ki and Hon, 2007).
Social media marketing: Social media networks are provide a direct communication with public,
customers, government, investors and other target groups. There are various platform involved
like Facebook, You Tube, Instagram etc. Feedback also can be get by these platforms, which can
help to improve their services.
The social media platforms can be most suitable media for promoting their tourist destination
more effectively.
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Evaluate the appropriateness of the media that you have chosen for the PR campaign
and justify why they are suitable for your campaign.
Social media is one of the suitable media for Visit Britain for promoting tourist
destination for effectively. The extensive use of internet and social medial has dramatic changes
in the way of communicate and interaction with others (Smith, 2010). It has a great impact not
only on public, but also the various organisations. There are various social media tools which can
promote the tourist destination in an attractive manner. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn
etc. can be used by the tourist agency. To provide the direct information about the various issues
to their potential customers on the chosen destination, social media can be most appropriate tool
as compare to others. It provide direct interaction with public. Social media provides the means
to save money. Social media is the website and the applications so that they are unable the users
so that they can create and share the content or they have to participate in the social networking.
By the social media entity can increased the brand recognition along with the improvement in the
brand loyalty (Podolsky and Greene, 2008). Further they have to attain the opportunities so that
they can convert the different strategies which will help in attaining the success. They have to
provide the services at a high conversion rates. Public relation describe the various methods by
which Visit Britain use this so that they can disseminate the messages about its products and
services. It is the common tool of public relation which include the news releases, press
conference and programmes which is related to the community service. Public relations involve
the two way communication between the entity and public. The main goal of public relation is
that they have to create, maintain and protect the reputation of the corporation along with
enhance its brand image. Further they have to make the right decisions which helps in attaining
the success (Buse and Harmer, 2007). There are six steps which are included in a campaign of
public relation. First step is that they have to identify the relevant factor of situation. Second,
they have to establish the policy. Third, the company members have to outline the strategies and
tactics. Fourth, actual communication with the public. Fifth, entity have to receive the feedback
from public. Sixth, entity have to monitor the programme. Entity have to maintain the public
relations which will help in attaining the success and by this they can improve the self awareness
so that they can attain the leading position in the market. Visit Britain have to use social media
so that they can do the promoting activities best and attain the success and improve growth
(Sørensen and at. el., 2012).
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TASK 3
Review the effectiveness of your Public Relations campaign and briefly discuss what
strategy (action plan) will be put in place to Implement your plan
It is important in the PR plan to use the various strategies and tactics to implement PR
plan more effectively. There are various strategies and tactics which can be used by Visit Britain.
To implement the firm make focus on the ideal customers. In order to focus on their ideal
customers Visit Britain requires to focus on their niche market as well as the economic market
segment. Because niche market helps to make more revenue in the off session. For that they can
make their products according to the requirements like transportation, accommodation, food and
other facilities (Newsom, Turk and Kruckeberg, 2012). Organisation can provide premium
facilities to their customers, Which can help to generate more revenue. On the other hand, there
are large number of customers which wants more economical product. The firm can make their
products for black sea pool as a tourist destination. Budget also an important part of public
relation. It is significant that PR department can make their plan according to the given budget. If
the cost of the PR plan is more as compare to it rate of return, which is not good for company.
The higher authorities are requires to forecast rate of return on the PR plan (Spicer, 2013).
To analyses the effectiveness of a PR plan there public relation department requires to measure
the goals and objective of the tourist plan. According to the given case study, PR experts can
evaluate their pre decided goals and objective in a more effective way. It can help to attain the
overall organisation goals of the firm. Another important step is to measuring the immediate
outputs for their PR plan. They measure the production and completion of tactics that should lead
to increased PR exposure (Kunczik, 2016). Feedback from their various stakeholders are help to
improve their overall output and performance of their PR plan. The various stakeholder like
investors, customers, suppliers, government and other are helps to provide the feedback
information about their products and services. Sales results is another way to analysing the
effectiveness of Pr programme. If the tourist for their destination can increased, there can be a
positive results of their PR plan. If the Pr results are not favourable for them, it means can be no
impact of PR programme on their target audience. Visit Britain can also conduct a market survey
or a customer survey which organisation goal in PR is to influence awareness, attitude, opinions
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and action almost mirroring the AIDA scale of marketing awareness, interest, desire and action.
If you measure key audiences before you start your PR campaign, you can see if firms have
moved the needle in favour of target audience at various intervals (Grunig, Hon and Toth, 2013).
Impact analyses is another important tool which can be used by the various business
organisation. In this analyses process the firms can identify and analyses the pros and cons for
their PR plan. It can help to improve the PR plan in near future. Audience coverage is help to
measure the cost to reach the current and potential customers by calculating the cost of an
advertisement. Content analysis in addition to the quantity of articles and impressions,
organisations evaluating the impact of their PR programs should monitor the content of the
articles that are published. These all methods are help to analyses the actual performance of a PR
plan (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). Website traffic is another way to determine the effectiveness of
your PR investments is to measure the amount of traffic your website receives before and after
launching your campaign. Sales leads often come from calls-to-actions listed on your website, so
analysing spikes in site traffic can help answer whether your PR efforts are working. Lead
sourcing is A well-executed PR campaign directly contributes to sales leads, but it’s difficult to
analyse when press coverage triggers sales. To learn if firms PR efforts influence firms decision-
making, simply ask potential customers how they heard about your company and its offerings. In
order to implement their PR process, PR experts must review their goals and objectives over a
period of time. It can help to improve their performance. They can also changes or modify their
strategies according to the requirements (Cornish and Ghosh, 2007).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report it has been described that hoe public relation are
important for the business. Public relation helps to develop and maintain the long term
relationship between the organisation and stakeholder. There are various information which are
required to share with these stakeholder. PR relation having various tools which can be used by
the firm. This report tells about the national tourism agency PR plan and which stages can be
involved in this stage. Additionally, it also described that evaluation and effectiveness of PR
plan.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Newsom, D., Turk, J. and Kruckeberg, D., 2012. Cengage Advantage Books: This is PR: The
Realities of Public Relations. Cengage Learning.
Spicer, C., 2013. Organizational public relations: A political perspective. Routledge.
Kunczik, M., 2016. Images of nations and international public relations. Routledge.
Grunig, L.A., Hon, L.C. and Toth, E.L., 2013. Women in public relations: How gender
influences practice. Routledge.
Curtin, P.A. and Gaither, T.K., 2007. International public relations: Negotiating culture,
identity, and power. Sage Publications.
Cornish, F. and Ghosh, R., 2007. The necessary contradictions of ‘community-led’health
promotion: a case study of HIV prevention in an Indian red light district. Social science
& medicine. 64(2). pp.496-507.
Capriotti, P. and Moreno, A., 2007. Corporate citizenship and public relations: The importance
and interactivity of social responsibility issues on corporate websites. Public relations
review. 33(1). pp.84-91.
Waters, R.D., and at. el., 2009. Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit
organizations are using Facebook. Public relations review. 35(2). pp.102-106.
Bayer, R. and Stuber, J., 2006. Tobacco control, stigma, and public health: rethinking the
relations. American Journal of Public Health. 96(1). pp.47-50.
Cattell, V., and at. el., 2008. Mingling, observing, and lingering: Everyday public spaces and
their implications for well-being and social relations. Health & place. 14(3). pp.544-
561.
Schäferhoff, M., Campe, S. and Kaan, C., 2009. Transnational Public‐Private Partnerships in
International Relations: Making Sense of Concepts, Research Frameworks, and Results.
International Studies Review. 11(3). pp.451-474.
Smith, J.A. and Robertson, S., 2008. Men’s health promotion: a new frontier in Australia and the
UK?. Health Promotion International. 23(3). pp.283-289.
Ki, E.J. and Hon, L.C., 2007. Testing the linkages among the organization–public relationship
and attitude and behavioral intentions. Journal of Public Relations Research. 19(1).
pp.1-23.
Smith, B.G., 2010. Socially distributing public relations: Twitter, Haiti, and interactivity in social
media. Public Relations Review. 36(4). pp.329-335.
Podolsky, S.H. and Greene, J.A., 2008. A historical perspective of pharmaceutical promotion and
physician education. JAMA. 300(7). pp.831-833.
Buse, K. and Harmer, A.M., 2007. Seven habits of highly effective global public–private health
partnerships: practice and potential. Social science & medicine. 64(2). pp.259-271.
Sørensen, K., and at. el., 2012. Health literacy and public health: a systematic review and
integration of definitions and models. BMC public health. 12(1). p.1.
Online:
What is the difference between Marketing and PR?, 2016. [Online]. Available
through<http://www.prfriend.com/the-difference-between-marketing-and-pr/>.
[Accessed on 26th December].
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The Difference Between PR, Marketing and Advertising, 2015. [Online]. Available
through<https://heartifb.com/2013/10/23/the-difference-between-pr-marketing-and-
advertising/>. [Accessed on 26th December].
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