The Public Relations Blog

Apply these methods to your PR and marketing materials

When you hire a public relations firm, you trust its members to make ethical decisions and use best practices in all stages of communication with your audiences. Persuasive communication methods work to change your audience’s awareness, attitude, or behavior. When working to persuade someone, whether it’s to attend, purchase, visit, follow, or donate, apply the T.A.R.E.S. test or the duty-based method to ensure ethical best practices. Read our post “3 golden rules of PR in 2018” to dive deeper into which ethical standards are trending this year.

How to be an ethical public relations professional

Some people think of public relations professionals as manipulators of public perceptions. Sadly, some individuals view PR strategies as tools to trick people into doing something. PR professionals are often accused of distorting reality and spreading propaganda. How do you avoid ethical accusations in your PR practice? Here are three rules to remember to remain ethical as a PR practitioner.

How to stay ethical in the digital marketing world

Ethics in public relations is critical. In today’s digital world, it’s so easy to reach a broad audience; you can influence consumers’ behavior and obtain useful information about them. You can use various marketing and PR strategies to convert consumers. This makes them very vulnerable to scams and deception.

How to build lasting relationships with thought leaders in your industry using ethical standards

Maintaining business relationships with influencers in your niche is a great way to deliver your message to your target audience and convert prospects into loyal customers. But no business relationship will last long without an ethical foundation. How do you build relationships with thought leaders in your niche ethically?

Practicing ethical public relations is a key step to building your business credibility and long-term successful relations with your target audience. However, ethical concerns do not extend only to the implementation of your PR efforts, but also to the measuring and representing of your PR success. Here are the top five ethical concerns for measuring your PR efforts:

When creating your inbound marketing strategy, maintain high standards

Inbound marketing takes time and effort. You do your best to write interesting original content; create social media posts and monitor comments; find captivating images for your work; and manage your readers’ testimonials. Through all your hard work, keep in mind that it’s important to be honest with your audience in your every inbound marketing effort.

Learn why both are important to your company’s image and bottom line

Your company’s reputation precedes you in every meeting, event and interaction with the public. It’s what consumers use to decide whether they can trust you and your product and if they should spend money with you.

You may think that a good reputation just happens; that if you are well behaved and don’t actively seek to do harm, people will notice. But this is not the case. It’s vital to manage your reputation – and do so ethically.

Learn how to get the most value from public relations without crossing ethical lines

We ask public relations professionals to tell our story, but do they have to tell the truth? If your PR firm, in handling a crisis for you, chooses to omit unfavorable information about your company when addressing the public, is that dishonest? More importantly, if unethical behavior from PR helps your company, should you care?

Learn how making the right decisions can advance your news coverage efforts

Some say that ethics comes from knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. Sure, there are ways to cheat and get around rules with little or no consequence, but is that the way you want to run your business?

Just as there are right and wrong ways to run your company, there are also correct and incorrect ways to manage your media relations efforts. Before you create or adjust your media relations strategy, it is important to be aware of the ethical issues involved to ensure that you don’t damage your reputation in the pursuit of news coverage.

Here, you win by demonstrating your ethical know-how

Is fakery rife in the PR industry? Lying has unfortunately become more common with some PR practitioners – especially lately, with the majority of outlets slashing their seasoned workforces. This leaves tightened budgets, added responsibilities and time-crunched junior practitioners with little experience and apparently no problem turning their heads when it comes to unethical tactics.

Talk to ethics experts and they’ll tell you that the best defense against ethical problems is keeping it real. Professionalism – not exaggeration – is the key to the future of the PR industry. PR is all about building relationships and brands; if the brand image tumbles because of a faulty message, that can damage your relationships, products and services.