What is PR and can it be like Advertising?
Unlike earned, organic PR, paid PR enables you to exercise greater control over the content that is carried about your brand. The usual case for PR is for the content to be produced by the PR agency and shared with a list of publications that the agency’s media relations team has built a relationship with over the years. But the content may also be created by the publisher based on a given brief and framework. It is important to differentiate such content and declare it as a paid post to ensure that readers know they are consuming paid content and not editorial content.
Paid PR helps the brand secure a more favorable mention since there is more control exercised over the messaging and attention to the brand.
It’s almost as if these different forms of content were born out of the need for establishing control over the content and what is said about a brand.
In general, traditional PR offers the least control over content and is not, for the most part, flexible in terms of format, pushing PR agencies to create paid or sponsored content. With paid PR, clients have greater control over what is said about them. Formats, however, are still limited to articles, authored stories, website and social media coverage, etc.
As PR agencies took on the mantle of creating content for brands, publishers felt the need to step in and control the quality of the narrative and the content.
More importantly, it is necessary to ensure that the content looks, feels and reads homogenous to the platform.
While traditional PR is organic, it offers the least control of content and is most inflexible in terms of voice and formats. Native advertising is at the other end of the spectrum. It offers the greatest flexibility in terms of formats – native advertising may include microsites, infographics, videos, web series, blog style articles written in first person or traditional articles, interviews and much more.
In today’s day and age, there’s so much competition between businesses, so ensuring your company is thriving by deploying both traditional and paid PR tactics is necessary. If you want your business to find success, people need to buy your product or service, but more often than not, you will be facing stiff competition. Being a credible and well-reputed brand, effective public relations should make customers choose your brand over your competitors. Both organic and paid public relations therefore have their notable advantages that will result in the brand exposure you aspire for.
