You need public relations to inform others about your organization, cause or event. Ours is a society of information overload. We are exposed to so many messages every day that no one piece of information sticks with us unless something about it attracts our attention. Public relations involves identifying public attitudes about an individual or organization and the planning and executing of a plan of action to gain public understanding and acceptance.
Advertising is defined as a paid message distributed to a mass audience.
Public relations and advertising are very closely related and often overlap, so the two will be referred to collectively as PR throughout the rest of this section. An understanding of some basic concepts common to these two fields will help you to effectively use PR to promote your organization or event. For example, if you are planning a workshop on preparing for the GRE, the audience for your PR efforts is probably students who plan to attend graduate school. You may also want to reach faculty members so that they can share information about the workshop with their students. The students and the faculty are two separate audiences.