PR VS PUBLICITY: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

You may have seen the words PR and Publicity being used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.

PR, or Public Relations, is what you use to communicate about your business to everyone:

• Your customers and clients,
• Your shareholders
• Your stakeholders.

Essentially, everything you say and do is PR (that includes social media, marketing, networking and speaking on stage)

Public Relations is all about communication and relationship building.

🎤 It helps you bring your brand identity to life.

🎤 It helps you communicate your values, mission and ethos.

🎤 It helps you build, shape and maintain your reputation.

Publicity on the other hand refers to being featured in the press. If you think of actors, authors and musicians, they work with publicists to help them promote their next film, book, album or tour.

Publicity is one teeny tiny part of PR

You know I love an analogy, so think of it like this: PR is a whole cake whereas publicity is one slice of a cake (hmmm….cake!)

WHAT’S THE RIGHT APPROACH FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

This is where YOU need to decide whether you need PR, or just publicity.

If you’re just starting out in business, or you’ve been in business for a few years and are just starting to think about trying different tactics to spread your message to the masses and raise your profile, then I’d suggest starting with publicity.

The focus here is purely on securing media coverage so that you can extend your reach and get in front of more of your key customers and clients.

At this stage of business, one of your main priorities will be to grow your audience, which you’ve *probably* been trying to do via social media, but have realised that it takes a long time to build it at pace, without turning to the Meta ad gods to help you out (which can also be time consuming as well as costly)

Media outlets have been growing their audience for decades, so it’s a much better use of your time to tap into pre-existing audiences than building your audience on your own.

It may still take time to feel the effects that publicity can have on your audience. That’s is why it’s so important to be consistent with publicity.

The more often you’re seen by your key customers and clients, the faster you’ll drive traffic and leads into your business (hence why it’s so important to have a website, to capture this traffic and leads)

 

If you’re already investing in publicity and you’re consistently securing media coverage, then you can start to look at a PR Strategy that will help you expand on what you’re already doing.

Your PR Strategy will be influenced by the data you already have access to. Look back at the coverage that you’ve already secured and assess what worked and what didn’t, in terms of driving traffic and/or leads into your business or increasing social media followers and/or engagement.

EVERYTHING YOU SAY AND DO IS PR!

Don’t forget my earlier statement; everything you say and do is PR:

• Every social media post
• Every blog that you write
• Every networking event you go to
• Every email you send to your list
• Every podcast that you’re on
• Every stage that you speak on.

 

PR literally means ‘to relate to your public’.

The platforms or the channels that you use to communicate are all different, but they’re all delivering the same message to the same audience to achieve the same result:

✅ More traffic

✅ More leads

✅ More sales.

BLURRED LINES

Now, this is where things start to get a bit tricky, because the lines have been blurred….

Over the years, PR has merged into Communications, to better reflect all the platforms now available to communicate with your key customers as well as your superfans

When I first started working in the PR industry in 2004, social media didn’t exist. And even when the different platforms were launched, they weren’t used as business tools, they were used as social channels to help you stay connected with friends and loved ones from near and far.

To avoid turning this into a history lesson, it’s important to remember how technology has advanced over the years and how it’s completely changed the comms landscape.

Back in my day you had three ways of communicating with key customers and clients:

1. PR
2. Marketing
3. Advertising

Each modality (or discipline) played a defining role in the growth of a brand

PR helped you communicate to much larger audiences via the medium of the press (print, TV and radio. Digital came at a much later date, in the 2010s)

Marketing helped you to nurture those people who chose to engage with the brand via different mediums – emails, printed promotional materials, having a stand at an event. Marketing was much more visual than PR, which was heavily focussed on informing, educating and entertaining.

Advertising is what primarily increased sales. The focus was on emotional psychology that would make someone want to buy what was being advertised, whether it was a visual advert in print, an audio advert on the radio, or a motion advert on the TV.

Adverts had to work hard to gain your attention and hold in long enough for you to be influenced enough to buy.

In a nutshell:

➡️ PR was used to build trust and raise a brand’s profile

➡️ Marketing was used to nurture those relationships and create brand loyalty

➡️ Advertising was used to get the sale

It was pretty simple in those days! 

Each modality knew the role it played within the overall brand strategy and everyone rubbed along nicely together.

But then came the digital boom and the game changed forever 💣

All of a sudden it was much easier to get your hands on what you needed at the touch of a button.

You didn’t need to buy a newspaper or magazine and turn every single page to absorb the content you wanted to absorb, you could simply go online and go directly to what you wanted to read.

However, it meant that media outlets had to change the way in which they shared content and how individuals interacted with brand content.

 

THEN VS NOW

Now, in 2024, media outlets can be found in print and online

They have a strong presence across social media, ensuring that they’re constantly sharing content that’s being shared in print and online

They’re using social media to repurpose content, but also to engage and interact with their audience.

It’s not a case of ‘this or that’ it’s a case of using it all to ensure they take advantage of their omnichannel presence

 

As an example:

I follow Women’s Health on Instagram but I rarely read their content online, unless there’s a link to an article in their IG content and I haven’t bought a physical copy for years

I’m still a consumer of Women’s Health content, but it’s via their social channels rather than print or digital publication

(Just to fuck with your head, despite the fact I click on their content via social media, it’s still the PR articles I’m reading. Social Media is the channel on which it’s shared, PR is the article)

The way that brands use adverting has also changed dramatically

Print advertising isn’t like it used to be 😢

It’s also not as effective as it used to be 😢

It’s also not driving revenues in the same way that it used to (every page in a print publication had a price – online space just isn’t as lucrative as it’s rented rather than fixed) 😢

If you visit an online publication now, you’ll see different types of adverts pop up, whether they’re banners running across the top, middle and bottom of the screen, or in the sidebar

You’ll also see pop-ups appear on the screen encouraging you to do something (usually sign up for something in return for a gift or discount code) – this is modern day marketing. Once you’re on a brand’s email list, they’ll target you with different info and offers, based on what you signed up to and how to interact with the brand online

STILL WITH ME?

Now you can see how (and why) the lines are so blurred.

Now you can see why PR has morphed into communications as it’s no longer just about being featured in the press and then using that across other modalities and channels.

It’s confusing, right?

This is why it’s so important for you to understand what level of support you need, based on where your business is right now.

If you’ve never been published in the press before, or you have but it’s been inconsistent, then start with publicity.

👉 Start with raising your profile and awareness of your brand or business.

👉 As this becomes more consistent, then you can look at weaving other areas of PR into your business strategy

👉 Then, when the time is right, you’ll be in a position to audit how well your comms tactics are in general (PR, Marketing, Social Media & Advertising)

 

If you don’t have an internal team or shareholders, you don’t need to invest in PR to manage how you communicate (or what you communicate) internally and externally.

If you have in-house teams supporting you with PR, Marketing, Social Media and Advertising, then auditing your comms tactics gives you a handle on what’s working, what’s not and what else you should consider.

If you also work with external agencies then the same rules apply.

1. Test
2. Tweak
3. Track
4. Improve
5. Repeat

 

So, if I take you back to the title of this blog, hopefully you have a better understanding of PR and Publicity and can make better choices when it comes to expanding the channels that you use to communicate to your key customers and clients.

If you think that it’s time to expand your Publicity to incorporate PR, then you can start with my book, How To Get PR, or you can schedule a free Growth Audit with me and I’ll assess what you need, based on what you’re not already doing

Knowing what you need to get started is often the hardest part

Once you start, then focus then need to shift to consistency before you can move up a gear and really accelerate the growth you desire