Public Relations: Transparency through the Internet

Transparency is an essential public relations tactic that over recent years has become easier for companies to use in order to boost their reputation. This is all thanks to the availability and use of the Internet. The use of the Internet within companies has allowed them to demonstrate their level of transparency to a wider audience of people. “Transparency…implies openness, communication and accountability.” (Phillips, 2009, pp38).  This is what assists in the thought process of a company’s publics when they are deciding if they will use a particular company’s services because an open company is less likely to give out false information.  By publishing all of their documents regarding the operations of the company online and allowing for this abundance of information to be reachable by both their competitors as well as their customers, gives the impression that the business has nothing to hide and is operating in an ethical way. The internet allows this to happen at a small cost for a company, paying for their website and website staff, rather than having the cost of printing out all of these lengthy documents and then posting them to their multiple stakeholders.

“A full communication strategy must include an interactive engagement with your audience.” (Public Relations Tactics journal, 2013) Companies can communicate with their publics in an easier way now, credited to the Internet. Through channels such as emailing, contact through a company’s website and social media accounts is how this two-way communication occurs. According to the Public Relations Handbook public relations is making efforts to humanise the Internet in ways that allow two-way communication to be more coherent. An example of this is being done with the media, such as newspapers also operating online and allowing for users reading this information to comment in response to articles and have debates with their fellow members of the public. When companies allow both negative and positive reviews of their content to be shown on their website it reiterates the transparency of that company, proving that they are not hiding the fact that some of their audience may disagree with them. By not deleting these negative comments or reviews their publics feel their views are accepted and that something may be done to improve them.

Transparency encourages companies to be accountable for their actions. If they are operating in either a respectable way or a non-respectable way this information will come out whether the company plans for it or not. By being transparent it encourages the company to operate in a way their public’s would be comfortable with and wish to support. The New PR (2007) states that corporate transparency is achieved through richness and reach. Reach being the audience and how they are able to locate a company’s information and richness being the content that the audience is able to view. The Internet has truly allowed for companies to prove their richness, reach a wider audience and use their transparency as a successful public relations tactic.

Bibliography

Phillips, D (2007). Defining transparency: richness and reach. The New PR Wiki. Available at: [http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=DefiningTransparency.RichnessandReach ]

 

Philips, D (2009) Online Public Relations: A Practical Guide to Developing an Online Strategy in the World of Social Media. London: Kogan Page

 

Sibilia, J (2013) 5 CSR Reporting Guidelines for PR Professionals. Public Relations Tactics; Vol. 12 Issue 5, p15

Theaker, A (2004) The Public Relations Handbook (2^nd ed) London: Routledge