Public Relations of Starbucks

Ever since Bernany’s work, public relations have continued to become a vital part to businesses success, as the field continues to grow. While this progression has occurred, different public relations functions also have developed. Specifically,

“Public relations work is all about developing effective relationships between organizations and groups that are important to them, including the media, customers, employees, investors, community leaders, activist groups and government agencies” (Lattimore, 2008). In 1997, one woman, April Williams, felt she was working so hard and not getting anywhere in America’s workforce. She decided to open up her own marketing agency that has now been serving companies to help better promote their business and work. Marketing is such an immense factor of Public Relations. It is the way business’ and people view your company and its reputation. North Star is Williams’ flexible and fun marketing agency which has received many awards and recognitions.

Over the recent years, new media has impacted on consumers more than ever. With almost half of the global population being active online and 30% of these owning a social media account, new media plays an extremely large role in society. These figures rise drastically each day. Social Media Today states that social media users have risen by a whopping 176 million in the past year (2014) with six new Facebook profiles being created every second. This is undoubtedly a market worth being a part of from a business perspective. Many companies are benefitting from this as they have seen this as an easy way to influence consumer behaviour and pick up on their habits.

Public relations has changed drastically since the early 20th century. In its earliest forms it was more focussed on the idea of publicity and advertisement. However, more recently it has been seen as a way to engage and build relationships between an organization and it’s publics. Public relations deals with promotional activities that foster a positive public image of a company or organization.

Social media has taken the marketing world by storm. Today, not only do companies have a dedicated Website,but organizations, representative of all industries and sizes, also have a blog, Twitter account, Facebook page and a Youtube channel (Wetpaint & Alimeter, 2009). In fact, social media is the number one activity on the web. Because of this, companies view social media as a critical component to its overall marketing strategy, especially since these tactics are cost-effective and produce results (Wetpaint & Alimeter Group, 2009).

Social media forums have had a positive impact on the Public Relations industry in the twenty first century. The massive increase in social media usage has provided a medium by which it is easier to connect with a larger audience worldwide. This has resulted in an adoption of social media strategies for many PR specialists. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow these specialists to keep up with the public’s opinions on current events as well as promote businesses or products.

Many people view the role of a public relations professional within an organization as one that involves “making the company look good” among other image enhancing functions. Whether they are called PR professionals, PR people, media relations folks, they are the ones typically called on to inform the public of updates or improvements, they are called to help change the perception of the public, help with rebranding efforts and in the event of negative press or other crises, public relations professionals are often called on to “fix things,” to wield that magic wand of words and press releases to make the bad stuff all go away in an effort to preserve or salvage a positive identity. Many would be surprised to learn that the role of a

Over the past decade, social media use has been increasing at an expeditious rate. According to Pew Research Center, 86% of Americans are active internet users, and the number of active social media users is increasing daily. As of 2016, Facebook has 1.6 billion users, Instagram has 430 million users, LinkedIn has 429 million users, and Twitter has 325 million users. With those numbers in mind, why wouldn 't the public relations agency utilize these free platforms as a way to gain publicity? My digital project raises the question of “how has the public relations industry changed over the past decade, due to the increase in use of social media?” Patricia Swann (2014), states that “public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success and failure depends” (p. 2). Strategy is a large aspect of public relations, and gives us reasoning behind all the communication activities done throughout the work day. Having a set strategy allows us to target specific missions, goals, audiences. Public relations practitioners rely on their audience to support their missions and goals. Gaining another way to put forth these strategies—via social media, has the ability to change the field of public relations in a prodigious way. With the rise of social media, some may argue that it is now easier for practitioners to communicate more effectively and timely with their

Advertising for Starbucks remains mainly by word of mouth, generally before they did not used to invest too much in advertising, however it has been increased slightly with the past of the years but still being a little bit low, but still being low comparing with other global brands for example they just spent 1.4% of the revenue in advertising while Coca-Cola is more than 10 percent.

The world of business is characterized by fierce competition and in order to win new customers and retain the existing ones, the firms have to distinguish themselves from the competition. But they also need to create and maintain a positive public image. A PR specialist or firm helps them both create and maintain a good reputation among both the media and the customers by communicating in their behalf and presenting their products, services and the overall operation in the best light possible. A positive public image helps create a strong relationship with the customers which in turn increases the sales.

The success of a company depends on relationships with the public such as consumers, suppliers, investors, employees, government and media. Since public relation practitioners are the once who do the actual communication between their organization and its public it is obvious that public relation is a management function.

Social media is integrated into the culture of businesses and consumers alike. Part of our marketing plan is to utilize these resources to grow our brand and educated our consumers. “Social networks and blogs are the foremost online destination in each country, accounting for the majority of time spent online and reaching at least 60% of active Internet users” (Vernuccio, 2014). We plan on taking advantage of this free source of advertising and marketing tools. Social media is a great tool to make headway into the market share of our target market. Two avenues that we will use heavily in the social media networks are Facebook and YouTube.

consumers to share ideas on anything relating to Starbucks. The social network let users see what

The theory explains that the value of public relations in organization and society lies in socially responsible managerial decisions and quality organization to public relations. Organisations must behave in ways that solve the problems and satisfy the goals of the stakeholders as well as the management in order to be effective. Good relationship with organisation’s strategic publics is helpful in developing and achieving goals desired by both the organization and its publics, reducing costs of negative publicity, and increasing revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Practitioners identify publics who are affected by or affect organizational decisions and communicate symmetrically with them to build high quality long term relations.

As the name of the discipline implies, public relations is how an organization builds beneficial relationships with its key stakeholders. With effective communication as the practices’ primary tool, modern day organizations have taken advantage of proficient practitioners to boost exposure of their company and its message across to international audiences.