Sink or Swim: Re-Thinking Public Relations to Thrive in a Noisy World

What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase “public relations”?

To some, it means a dizzying variety of shining endorsements, milking positive consumer feedback, minimizing and salsa-dancing with biting criticisms, and the occasional celebrity scandal.

But when you really get into the nitty-gritty of PR, there’s a level of complexity that few, including PR managers themselves, completely understand.

Public relations has evolved at a rapid pace over the last ten years. Long gone are the days of major “spin doctors” and obvious publicity stunts. Ok, not completely. But popular culture seems to have taken a very obvious shift toward things and people and stories that at least seem genuine.

If you’ve been in the digital marketing world, as virtually every business owner in 2018 has in some capacity, you’ve likely got some PR war stories in your arsenal. These situations not only shine a light on how your brand is able to float through the digital word-of-mouth waves, but how the PR ecosystem has evolved over the years.

Understand the changing landscape of PR.

Public Relations was much more cut and dry ten years ago.

Today, you don’t have to limit yourself to press releases or relying on massive budgets to get your information out. Think outside of the box and come up with unique platforms for your brand. Although not the norm, things can go viral overnight.

Social media can be your ally. Mainstream journalists are not the only thought leaders you need to have relationships with — influencers in their respective niches can have the same impact on your brand.

Search hashtags on Twitter and Instagram and request to join Facebook groups relevant to your industry (only if you qualify — be sure to read the rules of the groups). You’d be surprised how many media connections you can make in groups such as “PR, Marketing and Media Czars.” These are all things you can do on your own, allowing you to allocate your budget to other efforts.

Public relations is less predictable because you need to get your target (journalists) to understand your important message points and reiterate them in their messages. It’ll mean knowing their needs and your audience’s needs and where your business and its messages fit within that environment.

One thing to note is that PR can be messy. I hate using that term, but it’s true. In comparison to advertising, which gives you a point-blank ROI, patience is needed with PR. We typically tell our clients to expect 3 months before seeing any major action. However, this is not always true. Since most of our efforts are digital these days, media hits can come pretty quickly, but it does take time for relationships to be built in PR among journalists.

Because of the changing landscape, it’s important not be become discouraged when pitching. There are age-old tales of companies getting hard no’s for years when pitching their products, and today they are some of the most successful companies around. If you truly believe in your brand — which hopefully you do — my advice is to keep pushing through.

That leads me to my next thought on the changing landscape of PR. Make sure that your PR person ALSO believes wholeheartedly in what you are doing as well. I’ve made the mistake of taking on clients just to have them, but I’ve found the most success in clients who I actually believe have a great, newsworthy product. As humans, we work harder for those we feel resonate with us on a deeper level.

Common Misunderstandings of PR

I was taught in school that the difference between Public Relations and Advertising is that PR is free, and Advertising is paid. At first, I was confused — I’m going through all this schooling to become a publicist for free?!

More on that later, but the true difference between PR and advertising is that PR is earned media, and advertising is paid media. This means that anyone who has a decent budget can pay to place an ad most anywhere they like. Billboards, subway cars, print magazines and even social media sites are all places you can pay to play.

Earned media, however, refers to publicity gained through promotional efforts that are deemed newsworthy. This means that a gatekeeper of media has been pitched, usually by a publicist, about a story or product, that they feel is relevant to the public.

A common misconception to people who work in the digital landscape is that they think PR can be replaced by paid media. Anyone can pay for an ad, but supplementing this with third-party validation and strong press mentions are the best way to have your brand’s story told. PR helps to legitimize your business to the public, investors, consumers and beyond.

Obviously, public relations is not free unless you are a trained PR professional who also can promote their own business. It is important to hire a firm or publicist who has worked in the niche of your business before and who has solid media relationships. For example, if you have a food and beverage business, hire a publicist or team that has existing clients in that market. They will already know exactly who to pitch. It wouldn’t make sense to hire a sports publicist for something like this.

Publicists are smart, well-trained and capable, but it just makes more sense to stick to someone in your niche. They will be the front-facing person in terms of getting the word out about your company.

The Importance of Data in PR

Relationships are intangible, but patterns exist. Quantifying the value of PR has always been important, but recently people have become very data-driven when tracking quantitative ROI metrics in marketing.

It’s becoming exponentially easier to track things like clicks, page views and social media engagement than it is to track PR data. Not every aspect of communication can be exactly measured, and that’s especially the truth with PR.

There will always be a level to that which just can’t be tracked quantitatively — but a good publicist can plan certain deliverables or tactics that they know work best toward achieving the qualitative metrics that are valuable to a client.

However, there are some methods for quantifying your media efforts, and different PR firms can do these differently.

One way to measure is to use the AVE, or advertising value equivalent. Many years ago, this was a standard in the industry. PR account executives would sit with a ruler and a bundle of newspapers, measuring the size and space of a piece of coverage. They would then use that information to measure the equivalent advertising value of that space.

However, this still exists in the digital space today, and AVE refers to the cost of buying the space taken up by a particular article, had the article been an advertisement. Some agencies still do this, but it can be flawed depending on your client’s goals and does not take social media or public perception of the article into account.

Options currently available include reach, opportunities to see (OTS) and frequency. There are many (expensive) programs on the market for PR professionals to calculate.

Most PR agencies use a combination of measurements, including website hits, sales, and public perception. Most publicists will ask their clients how they’d prefer metrics to be communicated to them. For example, I have had clients who ONLY want to know what it would cost them if they had placed an ad for the same size, and I have had clients who want to know the total reach of an Instagram post.

It’s more important to measure the overall impact of PR than trying to put an exact number on it.

PR is about YOUR Brand. Yes, Your Own.

To some degree, today’s digital world seeks to put faces to brands. Richard Branson is Virgin. Elon Musk is Tesla. Jeff Bezos is Amazon. Lebron James is the Cleveland Cavaliers (just kidding, but not really.)

Your brand is not only something that should be guarded in case of negative blowback (as we saw with Travis Kalanick and Uber). Your brand should be leveraged to build relationships rather than cold email blasting contacts. Get personal. People like dealing with people. Utilize the people you already know to start spreading your information. (We call this “low hanging fruit”).

Establishing relationships with media locally or in your topic sector is a great way to be proactive. Most journalists have social media — follow them on Twitter, engage with pieces they have written.

I’ve found Twitter to be an often-ignored platform for pitching and building relationships, but many journalists invite Twitter pitches. Twitter has become my secret weapon (shh!) because you have to get your point across as thoughtfully as possible in a short space, so with the right pitch, you can grab their attention.

When it comes time for you to share your pitch or event, they will recognize your name in their inbox. Obviously, keep things professional and respect boundaries by not overloading them with notifications.

Claim Your Digital Landscape

It’s no secret that we are oversaturated by noise when it comes to digital content. As this continues, media consumers will start choosing specific places where they get their content instead of looking all over the place. (Think about who you follow on social media.)

This will make it even more difficult for other businesses to gain their attention, so there will be a rush to earn as many truly engaged listeners as possible. It is important to have an eye on your competitors and where they are putting out information.

When you Google your industry, are you coming up first? Who’s being featured in the publications that target your audience? These are the types of questions that will help you identify the current media niches and start building your own. This planning will help you own your digital landscape.

PR is a Hybrid

PR is an incredible tool for businesses, brands, and celebrities; however, PR tends to live in its own world. Imagine you bought a house, but only used the kitchen; there’s so much more value if you look at how all the parts fit together in the big picture.

Many PR professionals, myself included, have begun to combine their roles and offerings. I call what I do “non-traditional PR,” a term you will begin to hear more of. Basically, publicists can’t get the clients’ desired results from just traditional PR anymore.

When I was in school, we pitched stories to journalists and media with training and background in these areas. These were the gatekeepers to the news. Today, however, social media, influencers and celebrities play a large role in where many people consume their news.

For example, one of my personal passions is skincare and beauty. I follow large makeup YouTubers to get my information on which new products to buy. These people are not journalists by trade, however, they are arguably more influential in their respective niche than most journalists in the space.

Today, there is a lot of crossover between different areas of communication. At the very least, PR professionals have to make sure they’re effectively communicating with all stakeholders in the company who can get value from their work.

Final Thoughts

As Bill Gates famously said, “If I was down on my last dollar I would spend it on public relations.”

Ok, obviously I love that quote, but it does show the true importance of public relations to businesses, celebrities, brands and more.

It is imperative to establish PR as a critical ingredient in building bridges between brands and their end users. Your brand’s feel, position in the marketplace, and voice, all can be dictated by good or bad PR. A lot of times, a company will think their internal messaging should match the external, and most of the time this is not true.

For example, Denny’s has a killer PR and social media voice that resonates with millennials. But it’s possible that since they are a large, corporate entity, their internal messaging within the company looks much different.

And don’t forget, people prefer dealing with humans over just dealing with brand’s messaging. Be upfront in your pitches if you are pitching on your own, and you can always seek advice from the people you pitch to. It’s a learning experience that comes easier over time.

And if you can’t do it all on your own — just call me. :)

This article was originally published on https://www.thinkjuice.com/the-squeeze/sink-swim-re-thinking-public-relations-thrive-noisy-world/