PR, Public relations - Building a secure reputation

Public relations consultants generally have a much less secure reputation than other categories of consultants. One of the main reasons is that clients have both misunderstood and devalued public relations as a management function.

However, according to Theaker (2001: 279) reputation has good chances to improve in the next few years if PR practitioners underline better their role within a company . This implies:

•  Demonstrating that they can have the ability to offer more added-value service by having a better understanding and management of the strategies and tactics used in the PR field.

•  Improving both their specialist skills and their understanding of their clients' markets.

•  Making quality a major preoccupation. This will affect not only the skills offered and the ability to measure their effectiveness, but also the way they do their work. This will entail more of an emphasis on the principles of total quality management.

•  Spreading the message of self-regulation throughout the industry of PR, particularly in the sensitive areas like financial public relations and lobbying, before regulations are imposed on them.

For the future, there is an increasing need for PR practitioners to make people aware that companies will not survive only with specialists in areas like lobbying or consumer affairs. Companies will also need strategists , people who are perhaps not specialists, but who know a bit about it all, people who have a very philosophical brain and can put a strategy together. These are the PR practitioners and in order to have a good reputation they must build one, by showing in practice that they are professionals who play a key role at the top management of a company.

In consequence, when building their reputation, PR practitioners must keep in mind the image of the company which is associated to it, as rewards for success will be immense but the penalties for failure will be just as big. PR, Public relations - Building a secure reputation

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