Public relations skills, tools, and tactics are not only for achieving business ends, but also serve to advance social programs and outreach projects in public education, health, political campaigns, human rights, and many other ends that promote a public cause rather than a private interest. Many of the same tactics and tools apply to social promotions as to commercial, though quite often more must be undertaken on smaller budgets in the attempt to change hearts and minds, rather than simple behaviors.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.
Many of the communication tactics working for social programs are the same as those applied to commercial undertakings, including the most fundamentals of traditional marketing and public relations. However, social communications focus more on the consumer rather than the product. Notice also how social marketing expands the concept of publics, partnerships, policy, and purse-strings for a wider range of stakeholders in a project's activities and results.
Watch this video about social marketing. Most of the tools for promoting commercial projects can be applied to advancing social causes and programs.
Read this chapter on how public relations functions in the corporate world also apply to and differ from government, public affairs, nonprofit, and activist public relations.
Read these articles written by PR experts who specialize in social project public relations. These authors provide useful suggestions on how to promote your project events, connecting with the community at a grassroots (and inexpensive) level, and how even for-profit PR campaigns might benefit from partnering with nonprofit causes.
Read these articles written by PR experts who specialize in non-profit public relations projects. Working on non-profit projects is a fine way for a new PR practitioner to break into the field and do some good along the way.
Visit these links to a number of resources useful for public relations planning within social projects. Among the selections is the Social Marketing Institute, which seeks to apply "the very best social marketing practices in a wide range of settings all over the world” with resources including success stories, papers, and employment listings. The Social Marketing Resource Guide provides useful social marketing tools and case studies. The Nonprofit and Philanthropy Good Practice page features hands-on tips, articles, best practices, and discussion forums supporting social project planning.