A survey undertaken late in 2010 implies that public relations is not being used to make money for organisations. Rather, it is being used primarily for reputation, brand and issues management purposes. This raises questions about the utilisation of PR to sell products and services and the willingness of organisations to measure PR’s contribution in terms of financial bottom lines, ostensibly providing an insight into why public relations is hamstrung in gaining increased credibility and influence within organisations.

There is incessant chatter about the dialogic dimension of social media and how this enhances the potency of public relations. We can exchange views. We can influence each other. We can build relationships. So, hello, we can help make money and build brands through PR. But you know what, there is a burgeoning ubiquitousness of advertising or money-making distractions through social media, so you have to wonder if this preponderance of ‘dialogue, ‘sharing’ and ‘relationship building’ is just a load of total camouflage bollocks for turning a buck.

Employer branding is something of a chic sub-section of contemporary branding, yet marketing has yet to get its head around how to leverage PR to achieve a best-possible outcome. Actually, marketing has yet to figure out how to leverage marketing to best effect! But it’s an exciting and incredibly worthwhile dimension of business communication and one where dialogue/conversation/change based on feedback really does have an opportunity to occur.

The value of employer branding is becoming clearer each day as the battle for workplace talent gets increasingly fierce. Australia, for instance, is going through a severe skill shortage crisis in key areas. Yet many organisations are lagging in their thinking and application of employer branding, including how public relations can be incorporated into this quite specific, and generally marketing-aligned, business communication activity.

Public relations is critically important to branding; perhaps even its most important element. This is because PR is the primary architect and facilitator of stakeholder engagement, its brief being to be concerned about both the organisation and its stakeholders – their knowledge, opinions and behaviour. And a brand is built, these social media-powered days especially, as a partnership between multiple entities.

Public relations teeters on the precipice of hyperbole, but it is no spin to purport that the profession is at a critical juncture in its development. And it is with some irony that it is a communication tactic, not a strategic approach or a grand conceptual issue, that is the prime reason for this. You are familiar with it – the loved and sometimes loathed ‘social media’.

Letter to my readers: I am extremely happy – oh, okay thrilled then – to introduce you to a free report I’ve coordinated and edited: Public relations 2011: issues, insights and ideas. The report’s 15 articles discuss topics such as why PR agencies lead and in-house practitioners follow, why working in PR is a waste of space if you want to change organisations/society for the better, why more theory – not less – will benefit the industry and the fallacy of transparency being necessary for best practice PR.

When push comes to shove, it is more important to have a website with mobile web access than it is to have an admittedly potentially sexier app. It doesn’t have to be an either/or argument, but due to the lower cost of a mobile website, it having less barriers to adoption than an app and the guaranteed existence of the internet for years to come (not to mention it being THE place most Western people go to for information) its existence is a priority for professional business communicators.

Hopefully my leadership role in kids sport over the past couple of years has helped them have fun, improve their skills and enflame their passion for their chosen sport. But as much as I have, arguably, contributed to their learning, they have taught me some very clear lessons I apply in my PR/marketing role, including humility, enjoy the journey to the goal (don’t wait for the ‘destination’) and the need to continually enhance skills.

Mobile, hand held devices such as PDAs and iPhones are the future being manifested now for marketing and PR pros. Their use is on the way to swamping that of desk-bound computers and even laptops. For stakeholder engagement to occur effectively, communication professionals must customise their strategies and tactical means of communication to take heed of this development.