Professor Side’s New PR Course Vol. 1: “What is Strategic PR?”

It has been a while. I am Professor Side.

In this course, our very own Professor Side lectures PR professionals from corporations and organizations, as well as students aspiring to work in PR, on the concepts of PR and the PR perspective.
As a general rule, the course will be updated approximately twice a month. We also welcome questions, so please feel free to email us.

Now, for the first installment, we will focus on the theme of “Strategic PR.”

To begin with, PR must inherently be strategic; however, this term has been used with increasing frequency since social media became commonplace.

By definition, it refers to a PR strategy that understands the interplay between traditional media—such as terrestrial television, newspapers, and magazines—digital media, and social media.
As it is not a tactic, it does not refer to specific projects or plans.

While many PR professionals are deepening their understanding of digital media and social media, there is a current trend where understanding of traditional media is becoming neglected. In particular, as the majority of people—from the youth to the middle-aged and elderly—no longer read newspapers or magazines in print, there is an ever-strengthening tendency to rely solely on information found online.
While much of the news online is, of course, originated by individuals on social media, a significant portion of the original news is still information disseminated by traditional media.
One of the fundamentals of “Strategic PR” is considering the source of the news, how that news is transmitted, and how it is processed.

In other words, knowing traditional media requires proactive study to broaden one’s knowledge of our overall media environment—something referred to in a broad sense as “media training.”
Therefore, it is impossible to discuss “Strategic PR” based solely on an understanding of digital media and social media.