What is the PR? 7 reasons why it is worth conducting public relations activities

In short

• What is public relations?: The question „what is public relations?” often arises, because the term is used very broadly – sometimes as a synonym for all company communication, sometimes just as a term…
• Why it is worth conducting PR activities – 7 reasons: 1. Building and maintaining a positive image One of the main goals of PR is to build a consistent, positive image of the company in the eyes of customers and partners.
• How to start implementing PR in a company – step by step: A company that has never conducted conscious PR activities does not need to start with everything at once.
• What tools are used by public relations: PR activities are carried out through specific PR tools, selected according to the target and the target group: press releases and media relations – communication with journalists, expert content on…

Public relations (PR) are planned communication activities that build and maintain trust between a company and its surroundings: customers, media, employees, and business partners. Seven main reasons why it is worth conducting them are: image, recognition, reputation management, media relations, sales support, employee engagement, and easier access to investors.

What is public relations?

The question „what is public relations?” often arises, because the term is used very broadly – sometimes as a synonym for all company communication, sometimes just as a term for media relations. The following definition sorts this concept out and shows where PR ends and other departments, such as marketing or sales, begin.

Public relations is the strategic management of communication between an organization and its stakeholders – all the groups on whom its operations depend: customers, the media, employees, partners, and sometimes also government agencies or the local community. Unlike advertising, PR does not directly buy space in the media; instead, it builds relationships and delivers content that media, customers, and other recipients want to pass on themselves.

The name „public relations” is sometimes misleading because it suggests relationships exclusively with the „public” in a general sense. In practice, PR works with specific, distinct groups – each has different expectations and a different language. The journalist expects facts and data, the client – clear information about the offer, and the employee – honesty in matters concerning the company he or she works for.

The term „public relations” is sometimes translated into Polish as „relations with the environment” or simply „PR”. In this article we use both forms interchangeably – in practice they mean the same action, regardless of which abbreviation a company or industry uses.

PR tools include, among others, press releases, media relations, internal communication, crisis management, brand building, and collaboration with influencers. Each of these tools serves a different purpose, but they all have one common denominator: they are designed to make the company’s environment trust it more than its competitors.

It is worth distinguishing PR from advertising and from pure sales. Advertising buys a direct place in the media and directly communicates an offer – its effect usually ends with the campaign. PR works more slowly but more permanently: it builds relationships with journalists, clients and employees that last long after the single action has ended. Therefore, the question „is it worth conducting PR” is better replaced by the question „for what time horizon the company plans its presence in the market”? The longer the time horizon, the greater the importance of conscious PR activities.

Why it is worth conducting PR activities – 7 reasons

1. Building and maintaining a positive image

One of the main goals of PR is to build a consistent, positive image of the company in the eyes of customers and partners. Through systematic efforts – expert content, press releases, and presence on social media – the organization presents the same message across all channels, instead of leaving the image to chance.

2. Increasing brand recognition

PR activities They increase brand recognition through regular media publications, presence at industry conferences, and collaboration with experts and internet creators. The more often a company appears in a substantive context – not just advertising – the easier it is for customers to associate it with a specific field.

3. Reputation management

Reputation is built over years, and destroyed in a few days – that is why managing it requires constant attention, not ad-hoc actions taken only in response to a problem.

A company’s reputation influences its results more than is usually assumed – from whether a client chooses it over its competitors to whether a supplier agrees to a longer payment term. Effective PR efforts include constant monitoring of public opinion and rapid response to crisis situations before they grow out of control. We write about this in the article on PR crisis management.

4. Strengthening relations with the media

Media relations, Building and maintaining relationships with journalists is one of the pillars of PR. Good relationships with the editorial staff mean that the company is more often invited to comment on industry topics, and its press releases reach the right people, instead of ending up in a spam box.

5. Supporting marketing activities

PR and marketing serve different purposes, but they complement each other well. Expert content and media publications created by PR provide credibility, on which marketing can base sales campaigns. The company mentioned by an independent medium has a different starting point in its conversation with a client than the one that communicates exclusively through paid advertising.

In practice, good PR and marketing collaboration looks like this: the PR department provides the topic and credibility (for example, an expert publication on a problem that the company’s product solves), and marketing translates this into a specific offer and sales campaign aimed at people who are already interested in this topic.

6. Increasing employee engagement

Internal communication is part of PR activities aimed at the company’s internal staff. Clear information dissemination, building organizational culture, and engaging the team in the company’s current events translate into employee loyalty. Satisfied employees are more likely to recommend the company as an employer, which makes recruitment easier and reduces its costs.

This PR activity is one of the most often overlooked, because its effects are not visible in the media or in the number of job offers – they are seen in recruitment conversations, when candidates themselves mention the opinions of friends who work at the company, and in the lower turnover of the team, when employees understand the direction the company is heading in.

7. Attracting investors and business partners

A strong reputation and a consistent image make it easier to talk to investors and business partners who are more willing to engage in relationships with companies perceived as reliable and stable. PR activities build that credibility long before the first conversation about cooperation or financing, so that at the negotiation stage the company no longer has to convince the other party that it is worth talking to them – that earlier communication work has done its job.

The following table sorts these seven reasons together with an example of how to check whether the given action actually produces an effect.

Reason	What it brings to the company	How to check the effect
Image	A consistent, positive image of the brand	Content audit across all channels
Recognizability	Greater visibility in the industry	Number of publications and mentions in the media
Reputation	Lower risk of a crisis of image	Monitoring of mentions and their tone
Media relations	Easier access to publications	Number of journalists' responses to materials
Marketing support	Higher effectiveness of sales campaigns	Comparison of campaign results with and without PR support
Employee involvement	Lower turnover, easier recruitment	Number of employee surveys, internal surveys
Investors and partners	Easier discussions about financing and cooperation	Number of inquiries from potential partners

Many entrepreneurs put off PR activities because they seem expensive or complicated. In practice, the cost of a lack of PR is higher – it is the cost of lost customers who have chosen a competitor that is more recognizable in the market, and the cost of the time that has to be spent to rebuild reputation after a crisis whose good relations with the media could have mitigated the damage.

How to start implementing PR in a company – step by step

A company that has never conducted conscious PR activities does not have to start with everything at once. The following steps show a sensible order of implementation.

1. Check what is being said about the company online and in the media today – this is the starting point with which future results can be compared.
2. Set one specific goal for the first six months – for example, more expert publications in industry media or better company recognition among job candidates.
3. Choose two or three tools that best suit the purpose, rather than trying to do everything at once.
4. Prepare a simple plan for crisis communication before it becomes necessary – it’s easier to write it down calmly than to improvise during a problem.
5. After the first quarter, check the results and decide which actions to develop and which to change.

What tools are used by public relations?

PR activities are carried out through specific actions. PR tools, selected for the purpose and target group:

• press releases and media relations – communication with journalists,
• expert content on the website and the company blog – building authority in the industry,
• social media – ongoing contact with the audience,
• internal communication – informing and engaging employees,
• crisis communication plan – ready guidelines for responding to difficult situations.

A full overview of these tools, along with when which ones are worth using, can be found in the article about instruments of public relations.

The selection of PR tools depends on who the recipient of the communication is. Communication directed at industry journalists requires a different approach than communication with individual clients or with your own employees – it differs in terms of language, length of the material, and the channel through which it reaches the recipient. Therefore, a good PR strategy always starts with asking about the recipient, and only then does it select specific tools.

The most common mistakes in conducting PR activities

• Treating PR as a one-time campaign. Reputation is built over years, and destroyed in a few days – PR activities must be continuous, not occasional.
• There is no plan for crisis situations. The company reacts more slowly and less coherently without previously established rules.
• Confusing PR with advertising. A paid article without substantive value does not build the same level of trust as an independent publication.
• Skipping internal communication. Employees who don’t know what’s going on in the company won’t be good ambassadors for it outside.
• Evaluation solely based on the number of publications. Their quality is also important, as is reaching the right target group and the tone of the speech.

A common denominator of these mistakes is treating PR as an addition to other activities rather than a permanent element of company management. Organizations that consistently avoid these pitfalls usually started with one simple step: listing who in the company is responsible for communication and what their authority is within the company.

Summary

Public relations is an integral part of every company’s communication strategy – small and large alike. The seven reasons described above: image, recognition, reputation, relationships with the media, marketing support, employee engagement and access to investors, rarely work separately. In practice, well-managed PR strengthens all these areas simultaneously, because each of them is based on the same thing: the trust that a company builds consistently over time.

The difference between a company that consciously conducts PR and one that does not is rarely visible after just one month. It becomes apparent after a year or two – in how easily it manages to attract new clients, how many candidates apply for job offers without additional recruitment promotion, and how quickly the market forgives its single mistake, because it had previously built up a reserve of trust.

Public relations with Commplace

At Commplace, we conduct PR activities from the diagnosis of the company’s situation, through the communication plan and the selection of tools, to ongoing monitoring of the results. case studies we describe 101 implemented implementations in 10 areas of communication and marketing, including 28 integrations with customer systems (as of September 26, 2026). If you want to see how this collaboration looks like, see here., How we conduct public relations. We start every implementation with the same question we asked at the beginning of this article: which of the seven reasons is most important for a given company today.

The effects of PR activities – publications, mentions, inquiries from clients – are collected in a dashboard Commwork®AI, In one place, alongside team tasks and deadlines. The final decision on the direction of the activities is always made by the client – the cockpit provides the data needed for this decision, it does not replace it.

It is also worth reading: public relations instruments and What are the goals of public relations.

Sources: Commplace, case studies, 101 implementations in 10 areas, 28 integrations, as of 26.09.2026.