Public relations or media relations: what's the difference?
You will often hear PR agencies refer to their services as either ‘public relations’ or ‘media relations’ as if they are the same thing. They’re not. So, to set the record straight and avoid any further confusion, here’s what each actually means.
What is media relations?
It is a question that causes a lot of confusion among marketers and business leaders alike. Most people see media relations and public relations as being two sides of the same coin. This is not the case.
Media relations is simply one aspect of what public relations does. Its job is to forge a link between the media and the client with the PR agency – Clearly PR – acting as the conduit between the two.
In other words, media relations is the process by which a PR agency takes your story and presents it to the media of most importance to your organisation. The result: media coverage in the form of quotes, interviews, features, and profiles of your key people.
So, what is public relations?
Ask most people what public relations is and their response is likely to contain the words ‘press releases’ and ‘column inches’ in top media outlets. They’re not wrong because that’s the role played by media relations and media relations is a function of public relations.
Public relations is about enhancing relations with an organisation’s public. That could be customers, investors, employees, suppliers, partners, and their communities.
It involves understanding your message and then turning that into creative storytelling using a number of tactics, including corporate communications (internal and external), social media, content marketing, paid advertising, email marketing, digital content, and yes – media relations.
As you can see, the key difference is that public relations is an integrated approach consisting of multiple elements of which media relations is one of them.
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