Why Is It Important For You To Know Your Publics?
- Martin Lee Yuen Ming
- Sep 23, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 29, 2018
Most of the time, when you ask someone what they understand about Public Relations (“PR”), their general answers would be related to mass communication and relationships. According to Chartered Institute of Public Relations (2018), PR is described as “a planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics”.
Why is it important to identify the different types of publics as a PR practitioner?
Publics consists of individuals, groups and corporate entities that you need to communicate with in order to achieve your set objective (Jayasainan, 2018).
In your organization, understanding and identifying the types of target publics is very important to successfully achieve the goals set by your organization and clients. Therefore, you need to understand who you are communicating with in order to carry out your tactics and communication strategies that are targeted towards specific groups to accomplish your purpose.
How does knowing your publics benefit you?
By understanding and identifying your target publics, you are able to build long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial with them.
In any given situation, a two-way communication (with feedback) is essential in order to execute the exchange of information and resources between your organization and your publics, which will also enhance the reputation of your organization.
Award-Winning Educator Shares Her Tips | Knowing Your Audience.
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The ultimate goal of any successful campaign, is creating awareness and changing uninvolved groups of people into an active and involved publics.
An Example would be:
Let’s use the scenario of a toy manufacturer unintentionally produced harmful toys, which affects the children and their parents who bought the toys.
As a PR professional, your organization has assigned the task for you to organize a public campaign to educate the publics about the issue.
Who are your publics? You need to research on backgrounds such demographics and psychographics in order to resolve the issue by using the right communication method to engage with them.
The parents need to be aware by recognizing that there is a problem with the harmful toy, they also need to know the steps that should be taken to solve the issue.
The parents should be mostly engaged, by initiating and taking action against the manufacturer.
The children should be educated that harmful toys can end up hurting them badly, and parents should act by disposing them away as soon as possible.
Knowing your audiences, helps prevent your organization from wasting the wrong communication strategies on the wrong audiences.
Still confused? Don't worry!
To make things easier, Situational Theory of Publics was developed by J.E Grunig, which aids PR practitioners to understand why some publics are passive or active in terms of seeking and reacting to any information published.
This theory divides the publics into 3 main groups, (4 particularly), based on 3 types of variables:
1. Problem Recognition
- Recognizes the problem as an issue that will affect them on a personal level.
- Considers various solutions and initiates themselves towards resolving the problem.
2. Constraint Recognition
- When people perceives some obstacles, that acts as a barrier that prevents them from solving the problem.
- These perceptions usually affect their decisions on whether to initiate (take action) or not.
3. Level of Involvement
- People’s degree of participation in resolving a problem, which also categorizes them into either active or passive publics.
- Individuals that cares about resolving the issue.
“By knowing what type of people are most likely in what group, public relation practitioners can then craft a message to motivate or inform that group of people.” - Lester.
“Love Lung, Love Life” is an informational campaign that showcases a Lung Cancer Awareness Charity Run that will be held on the 11th of November 2018. This is a charity drive that is organized by EMPOWERED – The Cancer Advocacy Society of Malaysia
Here are the objectives of the campaign:
1) To raise awareness about the many types of lung cancer, recent evolution in diagnostics, therapeutics and prevention.
2) To work in collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations to promote smoke-free public and workplaces.
3) To encourage and educate the public to achieve healthy lungs and active lifestyles.
4) To raise sufficient funds to allow ongoing implementation of our grassroot cancer screening and treatment projects, so as to allow an increasing number of underprivileged communities throughout Malaysia to have their basic right to fight against cancer.
Now, let’s examine the “Love Lung, Love Life” campaign and identify its specific types of publics.
LATENT
Healthy people, general Malaysians and people without any lung disease (E.g., cancer).
AWARE
Hospitals, Schools, Students, Family and friends of victims of lung cancer.
ACTIVE
Empowered (The Cancer Advocacy Society of Malaysia), Fresenius Kabi, MOMAwater, Yakult, Poh Kong, KAO, Daikin, Lung disease hospitals, Lung surgeons, Runners, Researchers, Participants, Lung disease victims.
Are you ready to be a part of this AWESOME charity run?
Register now by clicking here!
To find out more information about the event or organization, feel free to visit their website:
*References
Chartered Institute of Public Relations. (2018) What is PR? | Chartered Institute of Public Relations. [online] Available at: https://www.cipr.co.uk/content/policy/careers-advice/what-pr [Accessed 22 September 2018].
Empowered. (2018) Empowered – The Cancer Advocacy Society of Malaysia. [online] Available at: http://www.empowered.org.my/events.html [Accessed 22 September 2018].
Jayasainan, S. (2018) PR Publics / Audiences & Issues. | Public Relations Principles. [online]. Available at: https://times.taylors.edu.my/pluginfile.php/2759328/mod_resource/content/4/Topic%203%20-%20PR%20Publics%20%20Issues.pdf [Accessed 22 September 2018].
Lester, C. (n.d.) Situational Theory of Publics. [online] Available at: https://sites.psu.edu/colinlester473/theory-research/ [Accessed 22 September 2018].
Lung Cancer Awareness Charity Run. (2018) Howei Online Event Registration – Cycling & Running Events in Malaysia, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Perak, Johor. [online] Available at: https://event.howei.com/event/lung-cancer-awareness-charity-run-2018 [Accessed 22 September 2018].
TesTeach. (2018) PR Publics And Grunig’s Situational Theory – Lessons – Tes Teach. | Blendspace. [online]. Available at: https://www.tes.com/lessons/GCd35x-xWFYlmg/pr-publics-and-grunig-s-situational-theory [Accessed 22 September 2018].
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