4. A List of Stakeholders in Public Relations
- Amith Prabhu Founder Trustee - The PRomise Foundation
In PR as well, 50% of work is content creation and content production. 25% of the work is letting the content connect with three sets of people.
A lot of times we think the only stakeholder in the world of PR is the media. Media is not a stakeholder, it’s a special interest group.
Every business has two primary stakeholders, customers and employees. No business can flourish without having both of these to support the business growth.
This is why a lot of content is actually created to reach the customer and the employees, and a lot of companies have corporate communications experts and employee engagement experts to oversee internal communications.
Businesses do this to keep our employees completely glued to the company and make them not want to leave.
It is the same with the customers. When we create content that speaks directly to the customers, they feel valued. This makes them sticky and they remain with the brand until they find someone else doing it better.
Customers and employees are the primary set of stakeholders that a business has. Beyond this, the secondary stakeholders are those that the business doesn’t need on a daily basis, but must engage with over the long-term.
Those include suppliers, partners, vendors, the government, alumni, former employees or churned customers who can spread the word of mouth about the company.
Everybody who’s not a primary customer and an employee becomes a secondary stakeholder for an organization. A lot of communication also is planned keeping these people in mind.
I call the third group of stakeholders Special Interest Groups. These include media or journalists, and in today's time, social media influencers as well. Brands use them to get the company's word out to that audience. We see this all the time, especially with Hospitality and FMCG brands.
They get influencers to use the product, experience the hotel, fly an airline and make positive comments on their company. Sometimes it backfires. Some people don’t have a great experience and they make negative comments as well.
This is the third group of stakeholders — the special interest group of media and influencers.
I put media and influencers separately, because in today's world influencers could also be your employees. Many individuals now have substantial followings on platforms like Twitter and Instagram, even if their content is unrelated to the company they work for.
For instance, an Infosys employee might also be a popular food or travel blogger. While their content might not directly relate to Infosys, a simple comment like, “Wow, today my Infosys campus feels like a resort thanks to the amazing infrastructure improvements they’ve made recently,” can positively influence public perception of the company.
Conversely, an employee with a large following might share something negative, like “My company laid off 100 people today,” without mentioning the company name. Yet, their followers can easily connect the dots, impacting the company’s reputation.
This also highlights the dual-edged nature of social media influence, where both positive and negative messages can quickly spread and shape public opinion.