Public Relations: Is it worth it?

PR is big business these days. How big? Well, from the rates in North America for hiring a PR consultant agency it can be said that PR can be rather costly for an organisation, with hourly fees which can get up to $500,00 an hour according toMarie Gentile, writer for the Houston Chronicle. But are these expenses always worth it? PR consultants would probably state that their knowledge and expertise are unrivaled, but there are some claims that such investments are not as needed as PR consultants make us believe. In fact, is expensive, external PR even needed at all?

Although organisations can and make use of such agencies, a recent trend is to use volunteer programs in which volunteering is promoted by the organisations. Well, how would such a program help in achieving positive PR for the organisation? Well, the employees who volunteer, will achieve this by doing acts of goodness while being sponsored by the organisation. These acts will be traced back to the organisation and mission accomplished: positive PR achieved. This seems to be an amazing tactic: Positive PR is achieved while letting the employees do all the work for free and the employees will feel better about themselves for doing such good acts. A win-win situation, right? Not always it seems. There can be downside by using such programs for public relations usages as can be seen in a study from Anne-Laure Gattinon-Turnau and Karim Mignomac. If the organisation uses such their volunteer plans to achieve positive attention, the volunteer may get the feeling that they are only being used. And what is the use of volunteering for an organisation which uses it to appear positive but does not want to do “good” deeds? None at all, which may make an employee  volunteer for an another, genuine organisation from which they do get satisfaction.

And gone is the opportunity to achieve positive PR with a rather cost efficient volunteering program.

A more critical argument of doubtingg the use of PR professionals can be found in anarticle from Aeron Davis in which it seems that most of PR practitioners do not even have an education or degree specificaly on PR. So why is it actually needed to spend that money on schooled, PR professionals why many, and more cost-efficient people can do it?

Well, although much work of PR professionals can be done by people who are not PR professionals there are a lot of education programs which train and school people in the many theories of PR. People with such knowledge are valuable as they can give that little push into the right direction which someone who lacks such knowledge could not. More expertise, more skills and more knowledge of the PR will provide an edge in achieving a successful PR policy and strategies. James Grunig believes that schooled PR professionals with the role of managing relationships are key players in and for every organisation, and although I think that his ideas are surpassed by more modern studies, I do agree with him that a skilled PR professional can provide more than others. So yes, PR professionals are worth it.

Olaf Schoelink is a Master Student Corporate Communication at the University at Amsterdam, living currently in the Hague while working part-time at a Bayliff office in the Hague.