Public Relations Garners Implied Third Party Endorsements in Media

04/21/2009

The chief goal of both public relations and advertising is to get information about a company, its activities, services or products before the public. Although there are fundamental differences be-tween public relations and advertising, many business professionals do not understand those differences, said Christine Keefer  Soderbergh of Keefer Public Relations, a boutique public relations agency.

To garner media coverage for your company with public relations, you must interest a reporter, editor or commentator in the story and get that person to tell it for you. You don’t have control over what is said about you in the editorial segments. Nor can you control the timing, placement or editorial process.

However, when a public relations campaign results in a product or service being mentioned favorably in the editorial segment of a media outlet, that mention is an implied third party endorsement. This type of recognition can only be accomplished through public relations.

Getting the word out via advertising requires paying for space in print, broadcast or online media.The advantage of advertising is that, because you are paying for the space or the air time, you own it and can say, within limits, what you want to say, when you want to say it. Advertising lets you control the process from beginning to end.

Keefer Public Relations, a boutique PR agency, specializes in media relations and analyst relations for real estate, financial, nonprofit, technology, consumer and other industries.