Information with rigor, transparency, and consistency. These are the three words that define press office… or is it media consultancy? To many people, they are the same. But they are not. We will explain to you the difference.
Press office is one of the tools developed in organizational communication, with the intention to promote products, services, and companies’ identity to the public, through content that can be turned into news.
This advisory is used to help companies to be communicated in the press, getting media coverage (preferably a positive one). Therefore, the job of the press officer is to establish solid and reliable relationships with journalists, to create opportunities for a media appearance. The press officer must consolidate the pertinent contents to promote the advice on local, national, and even international media.
In fact, the ease with which we use the expression “media coverage” makes it almost more identity to call this service media advice, due to the visibility into it is translated, but no, the scope of each one makes all the difference.
Press office is limited to the online, writing, radio, and television press. Media consultancy, on the other hand, includes the entire social and digital sphere of influencers, bloggers, opinion leaders, among other public figures who help content to go further, reinforcing credibility with public opinion.
The role of the press officer, an important figure in case it exists, in companies, or the use of a specialized communication agency is essential.
The press officer allows a bigger approximation between media and the reality of companies, generating news and information of public interest. When this relationship is created, the advised company acquires visibility through news content, managing its reputation and credibility among the public opinion.
This is a crucial investment for the longevity and success of a company, once the published news stays eternal. It makes the conquered notoriety as a lifelong pass on people’s memory. Press office helps to create this lifelong pass. It helps the advised company to be read, choose, talked about, and, essentially, referred.
Good communication, as a good relationship between the press officer and the journalist/influencer, make the company getting even further. A fluid flux of knowledge and information, as also curiosity, is created, and the search for the communicated company is stimulated.
Media consultancy allows the company to exist publicly, where, with rigor, transparency, and coherence, the press officer or the communication agency takes the company outdoors and shows it to the world.
Mafalda Marques, general director in Media em Movimento