HOW PR AGENCIES CAN MANAGE NEGATIVE PERCEPTION OF GOVERNMENT IN A DWINDLING ECONOMY.

Public relation is the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person. The state of the relationship between a company or other organization or a famous person and the public. to manage the negative perception of government in a dwindling economy the PR agency should apply strategy tailored to the targeted country, culture and type of political party behind the government, type of government we are going to promote, people’s point of view — do they like the current government, political party; each government is supported by a political party that gained the majority of votes. lets look at these scenarios of negative perception (1) The government has a fascism tendency (2) The government is under protection of another country (3) The problem of corruption and public accountability in the government. let presume the government is interfered by another country what strategy should we choose in order to reduce negativity and save money. if the majority of people are against the government, the target PR agency uses a wide array of ads such as social media both organic and paid advertisement, in social media advertisement the PR agency uses a huge number of users to promote certain campaigns for the government, in here strategies such as content curation, video advertising, image exposure and memes.

The PR agency hires many account managers to handle certain task publicity, on classic advertisement they can use posters, billboard, newspapers and even hire journalists to spread data about the government. The most cost effective method is organize SEO, Image promotion and social media marketing. Inbound marketing can be used here, we should also use radio and TV ads to change the negative perception of the government, we must find the root of the problem then use a solution. In the case of corruption and public accountability in the government — corruption is defined as an arrangement that involves an exchange between two parties (the demander and the supplier) which has an influence on the allocation of resources either immediately or in the future and involves the use or abuse of public or collective responsibility for private ends. The International Monetary Fund defined corruption as abuse of authority or trust for private benefits and is a temptation indulged in not only by public officials but also by those in positions of trust or authority in private enterprise or non-profit organization.
Corruption can be very tragic to nations and its pervasiveness can lead to low economic performance of countries, especially those in developing countries like sub-Saharan African nations. it has been documented by analysis that corruption in Nigeria has been a hindrance to its economic development. Nigeria has been ranked very low on the Berlin-based Transparency International of corrupt countries in the world, the ranking were based on weighted average of corruption perception indices. the overall index measures the degree to which public officials and politicians in particular countries are involved in corrupt practices such as accepting bribes, taking illicit payments in public procurement and embezzling public funds.

The corruption perception index evaluates government corruption on a global scale and the transparency international (TI) has been evaluating government corruption perception since 1995 and has been monitoring Nigeria’s CPI since 1996. The organization has a mission of stopping corruption and promoting transparency, accountability and integrity around the world. The organization produce a specific report annually on Nigeria that evaluates the perception of government corruption in the society based on several surveys taken among the public, as we earlier mentioned it is important that the Nigeria government pay close attention to these reports. Public perception on how the government deals with issues of corruption matters because extremists group like Boko Haram can take advantage of a lack of government interference to gather support for their cause. These groups can portray the government as being insufficient in dealing with such situation

Another problem, the public sector is the widespread level of corruption in the country, Nigeria is a developing country and its citizens lack some of the basic necessities of life. Therefore when individuals find themselves in government they try to embezzle enough money to provide for their families and future generations. in view of this, it is therefore imperative that to adequately address the problem of corruption the country need to have some economic development to ensure that it is providing the right services to its citizens. The reason why most public officials who embezzle commit such offence is their need to survive and provide for their families. In other to reduce corruption the Nigeria government need to better cater to the needs of its employees so that they do not resort to corrupt means to provide for their families and future generation. Also introducing a public policy that seriously punishes people caught in the act can serve as a deterrent to public servants, making corrupt acts both risky and unattractive. The effects of corruption on a nation’s socio-political and economic development are countless. Corruption negatively affects economic growth and reduces the level of investment in the country foreign and domestic businesses are reluctant to invest in a nation where public agencies are not functioning effectively and a chance for their investment to be misused. Consequently, poverty and income inequalities are tied to corruption. As a PR agency remember if the government is right then those who created the negativity should be targeted so in here we must stop those who created the negativity and do the promotion at the same time and when talking about PR and politics, we have to make sure to go through different points and strategies.

In conclusion, the role of PR agencies must be to create peace, harmony, trust and friendship between people and the government promoting hate, racism and nationalism are not the right way of promoting a government.