Reminder : The Difference between Advertising and Public Relations
Do you know the difference between Advertising and Public Relations?
A communication student shares her own knowledge about this exceptional and creative “science”
In the past few years, the communication field is getting bigger and bigger throughout social networks due to the numerous opportunities these tools offer.
First focusing on the ways of communication from the eyes of a company, we can strongly differentiate between Advertising and Public Relations, which are both used in the business. But, they have different goals.
It is true that every single company has as a main goal of getting profit, and to achieve it, they are helped by publicists and press officers.
While advertising requires investing money to show the products and/or services that the company offers, public relations is based on the activity of the media coverage among the press without needing the investment money, basing their job on the reputation of the company.
A big difference between both specialities is the power of spreading information that Public Relations have in relation to an advert.
Essentially, Advertising is based on selling products and/or services competitively. The key is convincing the main public that what they offer is the best option.
What about social networks used by these professionals of communication?
Nowadays, social networking is an essential tool to do many different tasks. Likewise, Advertising and Public Relations use it in different ways.
While advertising can perfectly control the impact of different campaigns which are carried out with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PR cannot control the diffusion of their work. They can’t define a specific target to focus most of their campaigns because they speak to the general public.
However, Public Relations have their own tools to communicate with journalists who are essentially the main working resource they have.
Press Officers should maintain good relationships with journalists as they spread information to the public about their company.
Social networks as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter allow press officers to keep contact with both PR and press in an informal way.
On the other hand, more professional ones like LinkedIn or a professional Web page (Blogger, YouTube) let them to maintain a formal relationship.

