Why Hiring A Publicist Is Vital

Why would you spend your hard earned money on hiring a publicist? I mean, it is not even a physical service. Well, I am here to tell you why hiring a publicist is vital. Even though you cannot directly feel or touch the evidence of having a Publicist, you can see the impact in various amazing corporate and private experiences. This makes Public relations which we will use interchangeably with PR, a difficult nut to crack. But we are not deterred.

Most businesses and individuals neglect public relations based on the belief that it costs an arm and a leg. It is not accorded the due priority because you often fail to see its significance. But let me tell you frankly, PR is among the most powerful and vital services you or your company can get involved in.

Do you know that with public relations, you have higher return on investment (ROI)? It doesn’t matter whether you are using it for personal or business purposes; you stand to gain a lot.

Want to know why? Here are some basics of public relations

PR is simply creating and maintaining relationships with one’s publics. The person or firm with the professional expertise to promote an individual or company is a publicist or PR agency. The terms can be used interchangeably.

You have probably realized over the years, that with the right attitude and actions, you can get on people’s good books. Everybody likes to be treated right – teacher, student, doctor, mother – we all react positively to positive relationship.

Right from childhood, we have learnt in one way or the other, that by developing good relationship with the right people, we have so much to gain. As children, we saw that good rapport influences our social and educational lives. As we advance in age, the benefits encompass other aspects including our economic and love lives.

Hence, as time goes on, you then learn and appreciate that the better you are at pressing the right buttons, the smoother things work out all round. Remember those times when playing your card well landed you that employment or got you that deal at a cheaper rate? The effects of good relationship (PR) permeate every part of our personal lives. It becomes more obvious to us as we advance.

Consequently, in our careers and businesses, we fight to create and maintain good relationships. The result is growth and increase in income, social standing, and organizational success and so on. But how good are you at coordinating the various aspects of your personal and organization PR?

I have learnt from experience as PR expert that for most clients, there is the knowledge and ideas needed. However, where are the prerequisite skills needed to integrate PR to achieve the greatest success or the strategies to reach the goal?

Why hiring a publicist (PR firm) is vital

A publicist/PR firm can break the communication and procedural barriers on PR path to give you the required result, even beyond your imagination. Each of us has area of specialization and strengths. Therefore, allow the experts to deal with your public relations, to break the barriers, so you can focus on other areas. In the end, you will achieve all round maximum benefit.

In addition, by hiring a Publicist, you would be saving lots of resources on the long run. Actually, it costs less to hire a PR firm, yes, on contract basis than employing an in-house publicist.  Most Art organizations have been outsourcing their PR services along with other areas like marketing and with huge benefits too.

Therefore, outsourcing is a sure way to guarantee getting professional skills from experts at affordable rates.

Duties of a Public relations firm

What exactly can a publicist do for you? In the modern world, there are numerous ways a publicist can assist you as an individual or organization achieve your goals.

The era of the usual traditional PR is gone. PR has transformed to take into cognizance, the challenges and emerging trends of the digital world.

Some clients still think that once they are able to get into the mainstream media like television and newspaper, they are on top of the game.

Not any more, all that has changed, especially for our area of specialization – arts of classical and nonprofit musicians. The traditional media no longer accommodate art coverage as such. To get art featured in television, newspapers or radio now feels like winning a lottery. If they get featured at all, they are limited to niche publication and local news.

The mass media obviously have greater things to deal with than arts coverage. How often do we see art critics review arts in the main stream media? The New York Times now give arts little or no space just like other mainstream media. The New Yorker Magazine has no business with art from outside of New York, renowned musicians and all.

So why do you still need a publicist in this scenario where the big shots in mass media would rather eschew arts?

Fortunately, the new era of social media and the internet has given arts and publicists a new lease of life. Thanks to websites, search engines like Google and Bing, social media including Facebook, Instagram, and email, you can still promote and inform your public, even better than with the media companies.

Thankfully, most clients know this and apply it in their own ways. But same cannot be said of the classical music industry.

From the foregoing, we can take away these facts:

Based on my first hand experiences working as a publicist for trusted brands and individuals, I have come up with three steps vital in PR.

  1. Identify the most effective model and strategy for organizations and individuals as clients.
  2.  Create relevant PR contents suitable to the brand’s goals using the right media whether traditional media, social media, search engines or email.
  3. Assemble the content created and develop a practical timetable to follow in disseminating the messages.

As easy as that may sound, you need an expert to make that work out efficiently. You can establish your own in-house strategies; build communication systems through the internet and other digital resources. Yet, there are still lots of people that still believe the traditional media is the only efficient means. Actually, it is not.

Don’t get me wrong though, traditional media is still relevant and effective. But seeing as they offer limited coverage to the music and arts industry, we should take our fate into our own hands.

Accordingly, employ the digital means which allows you achieve direct relationship with your public. Besides, you have the power in your hands because digital platforms allow you to control the strategies, contents and methods.

When using the modern PR method, we are able to integrate engaging and relevant contents in the form of text or graphics using relevant social media and digital platforms. You can out-source the content creation to ghostwriters or produce them in-house. Further, we can add brand partnership and of course, the traditional media into the mix to produce one incorporated PR communication mechanism. The end result will simply amaze you.

How do you choose the right PR firm?

There are certain vital factors you need to consider before you hire a Publicist –

It is usually easy to get good publicists if you know what you need. Most of them are quite experienced, having worked with various high profile brands and individuals. They have the right contacts in the right places – media and industry, and acquainted with the industry trends. Yet, only a handful can actually deliver meaningful results.

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