To better understand what public relationships are, the ancient Indian parable of the blind man and the elephant can help. The story explains how a blind man, after feeling one part of the elephant, did not know what exactly he was dealing with. When he touched the belly of the animal, he said it was a wall, when he touched the tusk, he said it was a spear, the legs were tree trunks and the tail was a rope…

This story highlights the difficulty of only looking at one part and not perceiving everything. And this is exactly what public relations (PR) are, which includes actions as diverse as managing the media, research and analysis, organizing events and creating messages. PR is strategy and evaluation, creating online and offline content, internal communication, speechwriting, searching for opinion leaders, designing a website, creating crisis manuals, producing the House Organ magazine or Newsletter….even organizing family days for companies.

PR is also creating campaigns for awareness, sensitivity or changing the behavior of your audience in general or a specific one. PR is also creating the Corporate Social Responsibility memory or the organization or journalists trips to knows the R+D headquarters of a company… In a sense here we see how hundreds of various connected actions can create an efficient strategy for public relations.

Mutual cooperation between an organization and its audience.
Therefore, public relations are a discipline that creates a relationship of communication and mutual cooperation between an organization and its audience. In order to do this, everything should be a series of strategies, executed by the organization itself or by an external provider, so you can present a clear, transparent, ethical and trustworthy image to the external audience (clients, providers, shareholders, subscribers, authorities, social agents, the media…) as well as the internal audience (each person who is involved with the company).

Beyond what it may seem to be, public relations are a very serious topic. In just the U.S.A. alone, there are more than 6,000 Communications and Public Relations agencies and other throughout Europe that come to more than 300,000 professional who provide service to hundreds of thousands of businesses in their various sizes and sectors with an invoice volume in the multi-millions.

This is an activity that we are all subject to and certain of, and that at some point has sought our opinion or behavioral pattern, probably without being conscious of it. This is already an element that provides added value to many companies in addition to a university degree that is widely recognized.

What Public Relations are NOT
It is important to stop for a moment here and analyze what public relations are not. In the previous definition, we spoke about transparency, ethics, and trust for the company or organization and their audiences. This is a fundamental element and NOT part of public relations, at least how we understand it at eyCom, when dealing with secret activities that take advantage of ignorance or the lack of information and are based on lies or exaggeration.

Neither are public relations the use of tactics to justify crimes or criminals. A professional in public relations is not responsible for hiding the junk in the closet, or as some English speaking colleagues say, the person responsible for running behind the elephants with a clean-shovel after the circus has done a parade in the city where is performing.

We are talking about a social science that began as a profession during the end of the XIX century in the U.S.A., which is independent and no less valuable than many other disciplines of communication as can be seen with journalism, marketing, propaganda, and publicity or public affaires. What it does not mean is that any of these could be used as a tactic within a public relations campaign.

Do it well and let it know
And this is often what happens if you look at the portfolio of services that we offer at eyCom. A series of services from various areas, focused for any independent company or organization of any size or activity. A portfolio based on the principles that have governed our profession for more than 60 years and that are absolutely in use today for any company or organization: Do it well and let it know.

We know that you do things well for your clients and targets and for society, let us be ourselves, at eyCom who help your everyone to know that you do things well.