What is Public Relations and it's definition?

What is Public Relations?

Understanding the profession and having a knowledge of what it does and how it's practised is important to understanding its values, ethos and professional philosphy.

PR practitioners engage in all levels of an organisation and communicty as they develop new ways to work with communities and other publics and audiences and adapt their practice to changing societal needs and demands.

Today's PR is flued and complext (Murphy, 2000), but there is also considerable opportunity for public relations in this unpredictable environment.

Public relations developments worldwide are creating opportunities for growth, a leading Estonian public relations professor (2011: 50), indicates that 'the focus in society has changed and PR has the opportunitity of a lifetime to show its true professional character as a social actor and integrator.'

Understanding and defining PR needs increasing sophistication.

The US perspective given by Glen Broom (2009: 27) suggests that we can define and understand public relations by recognising what it is not:

Public relations is not marketing, as the 'goal of marketing is to attract and satistfy customers on a sustained basis in order to secure 'market share' and to achieve an organisation's economic objectives'. Wehmeier (2009: 277) proposes that as a 'communication management orientation increases, the marketing perspective seems to vanish or at least diminish,' support the growing prominence of public relations in organisations.

Public relations is not a publicity, although publicity is one of hte tasks of a professional practice, for example promoting an organisation's latest prduct in the media.

It is not advertising as advertisers 'control content, placement and timing by paying for media advertising time and space.' (Broom, Cutlip & Ceater 2009: 30)

In 2012 the PRSA announced the definition of public relations as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and their public relations practice and has a limited perspective.

Dan Lattimore and others (2012: 4) defines public relations as:

"A leadership management funciton that helps achieve organisational objectives, defines philosophy, and facilitates organisational change. PR practitioners communicate with all relevant internal and external audiences to develop positive relationships and create consistency between organisational goals and societal expectations. PR practiterions develop, execute and evaluate organisational programs that promote the exchange of influence and understanding among an organisation's constituent parts and publics."

The Author of Publication Relations in the Twenty-First century defines PR by building on our understanding of the profession:

- Collaborates with diverse publics through dialogue and multi-way discussion, networking and relationship monitoring and management.
- Researches and evaluates its practice to understand how to engage majority and minority groups in organisations and society, and to explore mutual objectives, embrace new ideas and be prepared to take a step back when more negotiation is required.
- Is creative and innovative, yet flexible in its practice, as it constantly adapts to changing needs and changing circumstances.

Defining PR values:

- Emphasis on transparent, two-way communication where listening and taking ideas on board is as important as inofmring, giving your ideas and promoting your plans.
- Representing the interests and needs of your organisation and also working for what is best for society.
- Ethical and responsible practice where organisations go beyond serving the community to giving back to the community.
- Relation development between organisations and their publics.
- PR taking an active role in an organisation to counsel and ensure that the implications of decisions on public relations are voiced when decsions are being made.
(These values shape the practice because ethically managed communication underpins all aspects of PR - It is through this type of practice that the profession gains respect and dignity)

Design and Produce a Business Plan

For my group we created a business plan for a local Townsville store that was focused on turning the former World Vision Townsville store into an e-commerce store. Without the need of have a brick and mortar store overhead costs would be considerably cut.

Download our Business plan on Google Docs

The business plan shown was originally created for CP2017.

Identifying and Estimating Costs

What's the Opportunity Cost? 

Cost of not undertaking an initiative. Largest and most significant costs associated with Electronic Commerce (EC). 

Examples; Customers never obtained, sales not made, suppliers not identified and cost reductions not achieved. 

Web site costs? Total dollar amounts required to create and maintain the web site. This can vary over the years. What are the proportions of costs which remain stable. 

Decisions to be made when setting up your website need to be made based on features, reliability, scalability, security, backup and recovery and cost. 

Initial costs or ongoing for setup, maintenance and operation. Is there a backup solution that comes with the website. What's the guaranteed uptime percentage, guaranteed speed? What bandwidth will the website require to operate and function. How easy is it to expand the bandwidth, disk space and install different software etc. 

Funding Online Business Startups. 

Venture capitalists are very wealth individuals or investment firms. Which look for small companies which are about to grow rapidly. Businesses with the hope for rapid growth and initial public offering invest. 

What's the Initial public Offering? 

System of financing startup and initial growth of online businesses. Benefits access to large amounts of capital early. 

Comparing Benefits to Costs (Assessment) - Identify the Benefits > Determine the benefits then compare the value of the benefits to total costs. 

Internal Development vs. Outsourcing... 

Initiative's success dependency - How well initative integrates into and supports business activities.

Internal people leading projects ensures - The company's specific needs are addressed and congruent with organisation goals and culture.
Outside consultants - Seldom able to learn enough about organisation's culture to accomplish objectives. 

The Internal team - First step in outsourcing decision-making is to create internal team. The internal team has a project lead which is a person with business knowledge; creativity; respect of firm's operating function managers, good sense of goals and culture etc. A bade choice would be someone who is a technical wiz but lacks the above mentioned qualities. 

Early Outsourcing - Company outsources initial site design and development to launch the project quickly. Outsourcing team trains company's information systems professionals before handing site operation to them. Company's own IFS employees work closely with the outsourcing company. 

The four Ps of Marketing

For an effective marketing strategy the Four Ps of marketing should be taken into account.

Product, Price, Promotion and Place

Product - Quality, design, features, branding, packaging.

Price - Value to customer, price of competing products, customers price sensitivity. 

Promotion - Advertising, public relations, personal selling, online communications. 

Place - Distribution channels, market coverage, logistics, inventory management.

Download part one of the worksheet here and part two here. 

Selling on the Web

Revenue models can be used for both types of sales b2b and b2c.


– Business-to-consumer (B2C)

– Business-to-business (B2B) 

Revenue models can generate income through advertising, web catalogs and through digital content. 

Web Catologs expands existing the traditional model. 

- Adapted from mail-order (catalog) model: Seller establishs brand image, Printed information to prospective buyers order are then placed by mail or phone…  

- Expands traditional model: A web catalog replaces or compliments print catalogs. Orders can be placed in multiple ways (i.e. mail, phone or web). This web revenue model creates additional sales outlets for existing businesses. 

- Discount Retailers: Offer large discounts off retails prices... I.e. OO.com and overstock.com. Traditional retailers have now adopted online sales like Kmart and BigW. 

- Uses multiple marketing channels: Lower costs on advertising and more revenue as a result. Cheaper advertising. 

- Adds a personal touch: Ability for the end-user to customize how the catalog is displayed, view by category, size etc. 

An example of an early adopter of online shopping is; Lands’ End online Web shopping assistance - Lands’ End Live (1999) - Online text chat and call-back feature - Ability to push Web pages to customer’s browser.

Fee-for-Content Revenue Model

Electronic Books - Google Books, Amazon Books and Kindle, iTunes Bookstore. 

Music Applications - Ubuntu One, iTunes. 

Complications with Music online includes: No single store, Individual stores promote their own music file formats, Some artists/recording companies partner with specific store or boycott online sales altogether, DRM (Digital Rights Management) - Limits the systems authorized to play a file based upon user accounts etc. 

Fee-For-Transactions Revenue Models - Amazon (Offers books, newspapers, magazines, and other 

digital format items - Delivered directly to its line of Kindle readers), Audible (Allows monthly download of a certain number of books - Pricing is per book) 

Advertising Supported Revenue Models - Advertisers’ fees in place of users’ subscriptions, Advertising-supported revenue models, Site Portals...Web Directories, Advertising-supported online classified sites, web employment advertising, Used vehicle sites. 

Fee for Transaction Revenue Model - Service fee charged based on transaction number or size, web site offers visitor transaction information... Stoke broker sites (fee per stock etc) 

Changing Strategies: Revenue Models in Transition: Companies must change revenue model to meet needs of the evolving web user. Changes in revenue models includes; Slate magazine which has upscaled news and current events. Success expectations were high - Experienced writers and editors, acclaim for incisive reporting and excellent writing.  (The Herald Sun)

Week Two Worksheet

Electronic Commerce 9th Edition

View the Electronic 9th Edition for CP2017 at Google Books.

Lecture One - SWOT Analysis

Evaluating Business Unit Opportunities is done using a SWOT analysis - It evaluates the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the existing business.

Strengths in Business - What does the company do well? Is the company strong in the market?
Weaknesses - What does the company do poorly? What problems could be avoided?
Opportunities - What opportunities exist in your business industry?
Threats - What are your competitors doing better than you?

Trust Issues on the Web - Important to establish trusting relationships with customers.
Difficult for online businesses is banking examples: browsing sites pages - Difficult to determine bank size or how well established the business is.

Businesses must overcome distrust in Web "strangers"


How can online businesses establish a trust relationship?

Businesses must adapt to local cultures, "Think globally, act locally." Provide local language version of Web site. Customers more likely to buy from sites translated into own language. 50 per cent of Internet is in English.

Businesses may need to adapt translation services and software. Human translation: key marketing messages, Software routine transaction processing functions.

Highly recommended pages to translate - Marketing, product information and brand establishment pages.


For large websites load balancing can be employed which means the Domain points to a different server address. I.e, a international domain being accessed by an Australian IP can be routed to an Australian server, or the closest server.

Virtual Circuit - A virtual circuit is established first before sending the packets. Specifying the QoS.

Circuit / Packet Switched - Packet losses can occur.

Lecture One - Electronic Ecommerce

The foundations of Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) came about in 2 waves. The first wave was between the mid-1990s - 2000 which saw rapid growth, followed by a Doc-Com boom and then later a bust. The second wave meant businesses saw signs of new life within e-commerce which allowed for sales growth and profits.

Electronic Commerce is shopping on the web. Which means businesses trade with other businesses via electronic systems. A broader term for this would be electronic business.

Dot-Com - The business purely operates online.

B2C and B2B - Self explanatory... A business operating online directed towards the consumer, business 2 business is the trading between two businesses via electronic commerce.

C2C and B2G - Consumer 2 Consumer and Business 2 Government.

Elements of Electronic Commerce

Elements of Electronic Commerce

Business-to-Business electronic commerce has a much larger fields in terms of the number of transactions and business processes. 

The internat changed the way people buy, sell and conduct business. It forced businesses to adopt new tools to meet the demands of consumers and businesses.

EFT and Wire Transfers increased in popularity. It is not getting to the stage consumers and business prefer to use card rather than pay in cash - Checks are virtually non-existant.

Electronic Data Interchange - Is business-to-business readable information that is often used by trading partners.

Trading Partners - EDI pioneers (General Electric, Sears, Wal-Mart) Improved purchasing processes and supplier relationships. 

There are several problems with EDI - It is costly to setup and requires a large computer system and direct network connections. 

These direct network connections are often setup as a Value-added network (VAN) which is an independent firm offering EDI connection and transaction forwarding services, ensuring data is transmitted securely. Charged as a fixed monthly fee plus per transaction charge.  (Eway is an example of this)