In public relations, organizations must research and identify their target audience and varying publics before implementing a PR campaign. A public “is a group of people that shares a common interest vis-a-vis an organization, recognizes significance, and sets out to do something about it” (Smith, 2021, p.79). An organization must look for a connection with the public because if there is no linkage to a specific crowd, the campaign will likely be uninteresting.
“There is no such thing as a “general public” because, by definition, a public has a specific relationship with an organization” (Smith, 2021, p.80).
An organization can’t simply target the general public because there is no such thing. Their publics must have a general significance to the organization. This could be as simple as their age, demographic, income, or location. However, organizations must seek to find specific groups of people more likely to use their product or service than others. How can we identify these publics?
In an article by Jerry Silfwer (2015), he says that professors at Colorado State University suggest a five publics model where they divide publics into five categories; aware, active, inactive, aroused, and non-publics, as seen in the figure below.
These various publics are measured on a scale of how involved they are and how much they know about the organization.
According to the textbook, you could also identify different publics based on four different categories of linkages (Smith, 2021, p.84):
Customers
Producers
Enablers
Limiters
Customers are those purchasing the product or service. Producers provide things for the organization. Such as supplies, parts, or personnel. Enablers are those that regulate or set norms for an organization. They also could be groups that influence customers to buy from certain orgs. Limiters are competitors or those that reduce success for an organization.
Who are key publics in PR? Photo by Pavilion DINFOS Online Learning
Overall, it’s important to identify these categories of publics so that organizations can research them in order to better understand their publics. After you have identified these publics you can decide who are the key publics and who are the stakeholders. Stakeholders are those that may be affected by your org or have an effect on the achievements of your org. Whereas, a key public is made up of people that “have a shared interest or concern about an organization” (Pavilion, 2021). These people are essential to an organization and play active roles.
“When writing a communication plan, your key publics are those whose participation is required for the plan to be effective” (Pavilion, 2021).
After segmenting these publics and researching them further, the organization can begin planning a PR campaign. An organization can identify their primary audience through segmenting their publics until they have identified their key publics.
References:
Pavilion. (2021). Know Your Audience, Publics and Stakeholders. Pavilion Dinfos Online Learning. https://pavilion.dinfos.edu/Article/Article/2339406/know-your-audience-publics-and-stakeholders/
Silfwer, J. (2015). The Publics in Public Relations. Dr. Spin. https://doctorspin.net/publics/
Smith, R.D. (2021). Strategic planning for public relations (6th Ed.). Routledge.
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