How to be a Good Public Relations Officer

Among so many events that happened in Indonesia last year, this event can be regarded as one of the most shocking to the world of public relations. A public relations officer of an elite shopping mall in Jakarta gave a controversial statement about the incidence of suicide by a man in his Job place. Instead of empathizing and cast a reassuring sentence, instead she clearly deplores this incident and blames the players who chose the location of the mall to run the action.


The statement becomes controversial and. Most people assume that sarcastic tone of the comments is inappropriate posted by a public relations that in fact represent the corporate image which involved in the incident. The result, people began to question the competence of the PR being assessed careless in dealing with the crisis of his company. Maturity of thought, precision processing of words and how good communications are not seem to be practiced by the public relations officer when dealing with the media.


Public relations, though often equated with “humas”, but have differences in the jobs description. Duties of a PR is much broader than just dealing with clients or the media. According to Edward L. Berneys in his book, Public Relations, a PR has three functions, namely: as a conduit of information to the public, persuasively be modifiers public attitudes and behavior towards the institution / company for the benefit of both parties, and as an integrator between attitudes and actions of institutions with an attitude public and vice versa. The bottom line is responsible for maintaining a public relations and maintaining good relations with the public so as to create a positive image about the company.


To achieve all these goals, public relations must have communication. There are five elements in the communication process that must be mastered: source / communicator (the person who becomes a source, it can the competent authority / himself): message (message to be conveyed); channel (media / means of delivery of messages), the target audience (the recipient group message); and effect (impact happens to communicants after receiving the message).


In the case above, the public relations officer apparently did not think the target audience (the victim's family and community) and the effect of his statement to the public.
Mistakes made by a public relations catastrophe could be fruitful for the company image. A statement by the PR firms is supposed to represent the attitude towards a condition of things. Therefore, delivery must also be appropriate to prioritize the aspects of mutual understanding between both parties.


Before the judging and labeling a PR with bad or good, it's good to know what it takes to be a good PR as excerpted from a resume that was written by Daniel Buana as following:


1. The ability to communicate.
And this is not limited to verbal communication but also visual and even writing. A PR must be fluent in communicating in different types of media, such as presentations, interviews, dialogues, create news / articles / press releases, and so on. Aim to function as information or communicator. He must know how to treat the media in accordance with the characteristics, target audience, and effects that will generate the communicants (receiver of the message).


2. Managerial capacity / leadership.
It is important to translate the vision and mission of top management. He must know the ins and outs of the company, understand the behavior and attention to customers, employees and other groups with an interest in his duties as a liaison. PR is often faced with a crisis situation that requires rapid and appropriate response. Necessary of maturity to think and to act fast to be able to handle the situation in a calm and elegant. Soul of leadership is also needed for coordination between the parties concerned.

3. Ability of mingle and build relationships.
Flexibility in dealing with various types of personality and ability to interact with people from various levels, Included also use networking to get the required information like a detective. Mix versatility is also important to build a positive opinion on the company so as to create a trusting relationship. It needed people with extrovert personality type to be able to carry out this task.


4. An honest and credible personality.
A PR should be someone who can be trusted. What he said should be based on facts, not just a sweetener in order to increase the popularity of his company. The information provided must be accurate and quite important to know the community. In addition, in performing his duties he must comply with the ethics and upholding morality. Although his job is to maintain a positive image of the company remain in the public eye, but does not necessarily make a PR feel entitled to impose other parties that opposed him. PR should make a statement that a neutral, objective, sympathetic, and attention to human values.

5. Creative and rich ideas.
Having extensive knowledge with the ability to think creatively and critically is needed primarily to deal with various issues that require resolution alternatives. Public relations opportunities should also be good at reading and see the gap where he could improve the company's excellence in public. The ability to create new strategies to expand the relationship between companies and the public becomes an important criterion to be held by public relations


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