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What is Public Affairs? Public Affairs is considered a generic term covering a wide range of professional skills that essentially enable an organization to communicate effectively internally and externally with its various target audiences. This term may be summarized as the interactions of a company with the other members of the communities within which it operates, together with the company’s ability to manage its environment. Public affairs cover a number of overlapping business functions and are hired to find an effective way for organizations to have an established relationship with their public. Different companies refer to public affairs also as:
• Corporate Affairs
• External Affairs
• External Relations
• Public Relations, and
• Government Relations. Some companies use different terms to camouflage the way they want to be perceived from a transparency standpoint in their interactions in the policy arena. Some companies also have a historically established title for their overall public policy function that goes back to the origins of the company and should be probably be changed to reflect current circumstances and avoid confusion. Public affairs is all about knowing and workings with the people in politics that have the power to impact, in one way or another, your company, business, or organization. Most people wed the idea of public affairs of being directly equated with “lobbying”. However, public affairs is a wider range of activities that circles identifying, assessing, prioritizing and responding to the opportunities and risks that public policy environment throws up to an organization and its goals. Organizations usually use the advance warning the public affairs activities bring to adapt its activities in good time for legislative requirements. Public affairs may even help an organization reorient the way it conducts its activities as a whole. Public Affairs vs. Public Relations Public Affairs should not be confused with Public Relations. Their definitions and firms are completely different. It is important for organizations to acknowledge the differences between public relations firms and public affairs firms to effectively have their message delivered. Public Relations is ongoing commercialization and is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its public. PR firms have creative, original ways to grab the target public’s attention over thousands of media outlets swarming with messages. The messages help develop a brand, create an image and provide publicity an organization needs causing the communication to become more commercialized. Public Affairs is known to be more short-lived commercialization. The messages are less commercialized and the firms tend to concentrate on localized issues between the people and a legislative body or an organization and its community. PA firms focus on obtaining support and exposing opposition through grassroots communication by building relationships with communities. Public affairs certainly involves public relations techniques, but it most often influences the impacts of projects, initiatives and announcements on respective communities. At Pierpont, we know that being a market leader isn’t about having the most press releases, or the most colorful brochures. Leading is all about influence, and we work with you to turn public relations, investor relations, public affairs and marketing services into profit-making strategies.
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