Celebrities (and wannabe celebrities) depend on this. Politicians depend on this. All professional sports depend on this. The entertainment industry depends on this.
Publicity and public relations photography are exceptional marketing tools because photography is the number one way to get attention. The public loves looking at photography and they trust photography. News editors love free hand-out pictures not only because it’s free content but also because photos can greatly increase readership.
One of today’s catchy(?) buzzwords is “content marketing” but many folks will remember when it was called “public relations”. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says:
Publicity: something that attracts the attention of the public.
Public relations: the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution.
Next to word-of-mouth recommendations from a friend, editorial content is the most trusted type of marketing information. And that’s the key. Public relations must be editorial in nature. This includes using editorial photography to show real people doing real things in an interesting or newsworthy manner. Today’s overworked buzzword for this is “storytelling”.
To be successful, public relations has to be done regularly (not to be confused with relentlessly) and with quality (not to be confused with quantity).
The best public relations effort uses writers with a journalism background, (they know how to find and then tell a good story), and photographers with newspaper experience, (they know how to effectively illustrate a story for maximum news appeal).
