Asking for help: a misunderstanding of corporate public relations?

As a product of reform and opening up, China's public relations has made great progress, but it still faces many difficulties and obstacles, and there are still many puzzles and misunderstandings in understanding and practice. Here, we just want to analyze some common cognitive biases and practical misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding 1, "PR = Miss PR", PR professional beauty tendency.

Now some people in the society regard the work of public relations as the reception work of public relations ladies. Think that public relations is to rely on beautiful faces, and even say "public relations = miss public relations." The reason why people have this understanding is related to the misleading of some literary works and the practical influence of some units abusing public relations. More importantly, people don't understand the essence and action level of public relations.

The essence of public relations is a highly intelligent and high-tech job to establish an image for the organization and improve its reputation, which cannot be done with a beautiful face. Moreover, the work of public relations is not only the specific reception work, but also includes three levels of work. The first level is the decision-making level, which is the highest level of public relations work. It consists of the main leaders of the organization, relevant experts and senior public relations personnel or public relations consultants. They are the makers of public relations objectives, decision makers of public relations plans, supervisors of public relations implementation, approvers of public relations funds and auditors of public relations benefit evaluation. The decision-making level reflects the important position of public relations in social organizations and the public relations level of social organizations. The decision-making level determines the trend of public-private relations of social organizations. The second level is the practical level. After the decision-making level of an organization has determined the objectives of public relations and approved the systematic public relations plan, the public relations functional departments and relevant departments should formulate the implementation plan, decide the methods and steps to be taken and the arrangement of manpower, funds and activities, prepare news propaganda materials, hold press conferences and public representatives' symposiums, plan leaders' speeches or reports, hold exhibitions or demonstrations, write internal publications and write public relations. The level of practice determines the efficiency and quality of public-private relations in social organizations. The third level is the communication level. Communication ability is an essential ability for public relations personnel. Although the relationship between the public and the public is not an individual relationship, in most cases, it is reflected in the relationship between individuals and specific people in the relevant public. At present, people refer to "Miss Public Relations" and "Mr Public Relations" as people who perform communication tasks at the communication level and are responsible for general work such as receiving visits and seeing people off. Because these people are generally active in the "front desk" of public relations, and their work is superficial, it is easy for people who do not understand the nature of public relations to misunderstand "Miss Public Relations (or Mr Public Relations)". This cognitive deviation is one of the important reasons for the beauty of public relations profession.

According to investigation and statistics, a newspaper in a provincial capital city published advertisements for recruiting public relations talents in more than 30 units in the first half of 2003, of which almost all the required talents were: female, under 25 years old, above cultural high school, height 1. More than 65 meters, beautiful and temperament. Individual units have also increased the requirements of "being able to sing and be good dancers first" and "measuring the human body". Admittedly, objectively speaking, there is no gender restriction in the public relations profession. Men can do public relations, and women can also do public relations. It is not uncommon for one sex to be more than the other among public relations personnel. Public relations personnel are young and natural, good at singing and dancing, and beautiful and temperament. However, the practices of the above-mentioned units are biased. The criterion to measure whether a person is suitable for public relations work should be whether he has professional quality, knowledge, level and professional ethics in this field, not gender and beauty. The understanding of public relations work only stays at this level, and the public relations work of these units is absolutely unreliable.

The second misunderstanding is "public * * * relationship = interpersonal relationship = vulgar relationship", and public relations means tend to be decadent.

Some people think that public relations are interpersonal relations, and equate public relations with vulgar relations, which leads to a misunderstanding in understanding and practice.

It is true that as a specific public relations person, it is different to use my good interpersonal relationship: from the perspective of composition, interpersonal relationship is a purely personal relationship, while public relations is a relationship between organizations and the public; In essence, interpersonal relationship is selfish, with strong privacy and human touch. Public-private relationship is a kind of public interest relationship, which reflects the value orientation of organizational groups. Therefore, the study of public relations does not pay attention to interpersonal relationships. When public relations personnel use interpersonal relationships to carry out public relations work, public relations personnel play an impersonal role. Although public relations sometimes seem to be personal contacts, they communicate with the public on behalf of the organization, not on behalf of personal interests. Therefore, interpersonal relationship is not equal to public * * * relationship.

Open * * * relationship is not equal to vulgar relationship. Some people think that there is also the word "relationship" in the relationship between public and public, so they confuse it with the unhealthy trend in society-vulgar relationship.

Vulgar relationship refers to a kind of interpersonal relationship established by individuals in order to achieve improper purposes or self-interest, or it is illegal, disciplinary and social morality. It is different from the relationship between the public and the public in principle:

1. These two conditions are different.

Public-private relationship is the product of highly developed commodity economy and market economy. Vulgar relations are produced under the conditions of underdeveloped social economy, low productivity, low people's moral level and civilization.

Their aims and means are different.

The relationship between the public and the public depends on scientific, systematic, authentic and artistic two-way information communication, so as to improve the reputation of the organization in society and pursue the realization of its own value on the premise of being consistent with the public interests.

Vulgar relationships depend on improper means, such as internet, back door, cliques, small favors, bribery, etc. , secretly engage in activities that abuse power for personal gain and harm public interests to satisfy personal desires at the expense of others or collective interests.

3. Moral effects are different.

Public relations has the characteristics of fairness, justice, mutual benefit, tolerance, friendship, honesty and pragmatism, and seeks public understanding, understanding, trust and support. It helps to bring a cooperative atmosphere of honesty and mutual benefit to the society, form harmonious and United interpersonal relationships, improve the level of social double civilization and promote the development of socialist market economy.

Vulgar relationships harm others by hook or by crook, which leads to interpersonal tension and makes society lose balance, standards, morality and justice. Being attacked by public opinion, party discipline and state law are not allowed.

Based on the above misunderstanding of public relations, some social organizations abuse public relations: some "face public relations", "eat and drink public relations", "make money public relations" and even "escort public relations", which leads to the proliferation of "gray public relations", "black public relations" and "yellow public relations" in society. Although this decadent tendency of public relations means is not the mainstream of public relations activities, this behavior of opposing public relations under the banner of public relations has a very bad influence. It has ruined the reputation of public relations, poisoned the social atmosphere and disturbed the social order, and must be banned and eliminated as soon as possible.

The third misunderstanding is "public relations = advertising = publicity", and the focus of public relations work tends to be reversed.

Now some social organizations equate public relations with advertising, and simply change the sales department into public relations department, and the advertising department into public relations department. I don't want to work hard on internal public relations, but I am willing to spend a lot of effort, capital and effort on external public relations, especially on advertising. This tendency of reversing the focus of public relations is the biggest deviation and misunderstanding in our understanding and practice of public relations at present.

Of course, external public relations, including external advertising and publicity, is an important part of organizing public relations. Under the condition of socialist market economy, the old ideas of "the fragrance of wine is not afraid of the depth of the alley" and "the emperor's daughter is not worried about marriage" are out of date, and should be replaced by "always sip the wine" and "well done and well said". However, there is a famous saying that "90% of public relations is done by yourself, and 10% depends on publicity". It can be seen that external public relations, especially advertising, does not mean all public relations, but the public relations of more important organizations are internal.

People who don't understand the relationship between the masses and the masses often confuse it with advertising. Admittedly, there are similarities between public relations and advertising, that is, both use the media to convey information. But there are also fundamental differences between them:

Advertising, especially commercial advertising, is a propaganda activity carried out by social organizations with the help of the media to help sell goods or services. It aims to attract customers, promote products and increase company profits. The pursuit of immediate results.

The work of public relations is to set out from the overall interests of social organizations, build the image and credibility of the whole organization with the help of the media, mainly through public relations personnel planning media events and promoting journalists to write news reports for dissemination. This kind of free advertisement has strong social recognition, good credibility and great influence, which brings more economic benefits to the organization. The positive coverage of news media on social organizations not only reflects the achievements of the organization, but also reflects the overall public relations level based on internal public relations.

The communication of public relations is also different from general publicity. Propaganda has certain indoctrination and authority. The purpose is to encourage and stimulate the enthusiasm and inclination of the people, and consciously trust, obey certain concepts or implement certain laws and regulations. The public relationship is to introduce, disseminate or provide some information, but it is only influential. The impact on the public depends on the quality of the organization's products or services and the quality of the organization itself, which largely depends on the internal public relations level of the organization.

To sum up, public relations within the organization is one of the important conditions for the survival and development of the organization, and it is the basis of the relationship with grandpa. Of course, as the public relations work of the whole organization, internal and external public relations should complement each other, but in guiding ideology, we must pay attention to improving the cohesion and attractiveness within the organization. Only when internal public relations are done well can external public relations be more vital. If the focus of public relations is reversed, only foreign newspapers have words, radio has sound, and TV has sound, the popularity may become bigger and bigger, but the reputation may become worse and worse. This kind of public relations can not only create an increasingly superior development environment for the organization, but also narrow the way for the organization.

Getting out of the misunderstanding of public relations, adjusting all kinds of relations in public relations work, dealing with obstacles and obstacles in public relations activities and promoting the full play of the effectiveness of public relations are concrete manifestations of improving the level of public relations awareness and practical ability, and are also important conditions for creating a new situation of public relations with China characteristics.