The Changing Face of PR

Public Relations (PR) focuses on communication and reputation management and PR professionals serve as storytellers, relaying positive client stories (or mitigating any damage that could weaken a client’s reputation) while building trust and relationships with traditional press, radio and TV journalists. With the advent of social media, smartphones and our growing reliance on a constantly connected world, the notion of ‘unpaid’ or ‘earned media’ within the PR landscape, has well and truly changed, as has the way consumers interact with brands and vice versa. Now, there are many more ways to source media opportunities for clients and each one works towards the same reputation-building goal, while using different strategies to get there.

Owned Media

This is the content created by you, your company, experts, employees, customers, user-generated content, reviews, webinars, videos and podcasts. You control the messaging, whether on your website, blog and/or social media platforms – so get this right first! This information should be at the centre of your business and needs to be optimised, shareable and engaging content for both traditional and digital visibility.

Earned Media+

Now you can find journalists on social media too! Twitter and Facebook are sources of news stories for the media (note: they will still fact check!) so stay in touch with them online as well as offline. Digital also opens up your outreach to key opinion leaders, bloggers, influencers, micro-influencers and even investors, so engage (get them to respond to your brand and convert them to advocates) and partner with these audiences as well as with charities, communities and other organisations (which in turn will become ‘shared media’).

Paid Media

Planning is essential; look at content planning, prospecting, awareness strategy, engagement strategy/lead generation, retargeting strategy – and in that order! With the lack of cut-through with organic posting, it is a must to support your digital strategy with budget. With that, Incentive PR falls between paid and owned media opportunities where you can build affiliates, brand ambassadors, sponsored content, native advertising and control the message to an extent, if you are paying.

Measurement is Key

Before you get started, note your current PR and digital metrics and use these as a base for comparison and success measurement following your PR efforts. Your greatest competition is your previous self. Know your objectives – for each campaign, define what is the important business goal and what success looks like, i.e. adopt one KPI (Key Performance Indicator) per campaign. Then at the end of the campaign, re-evaluate before you start the next campaign.

Finally, it is imperative now more than ever that PR plays a part in your overall marketing plan and that the messaging across your PR, digital, advertising, events, graphic design, videography, print materials, website and beyond is consistent, with the same goal in mind. Is the right hand talking to the left hand? Does your advertising team know what your PR team is doing, and vice versa?

Hopkins Communications - Integrated Marketing Communications Agency (Cork, Limerick, Dublin and 3AW Global Network Partner, providing coverage in 25 countries worldwide). www.h-c.ie

Judy Hopkins – Partner at Hopkins Communications - Integrated Marketing Communications Agency