Public relations or something which is generally referred to as PR is a branch which is not just beneficial but significant and in many ways mandatory for you brand awareness. It doesn’t really matters if you are a well established brand or a start-up company who is not even sure about the budget yet; whatever the situation is, a plan ready for how you would go about your PR is like a pre requisite to business. Most people in today’s world confuse marketing with public relations. While these two terms are similar in a bunch of ways, one needs to know the difference and be aware of that thin fine line. To give an example, one can say that marketing is about telling people how you are great while PR is about other people saying the same thing about you.
Now, we have emphasized enough on how PR is integral to any business or start-up and for the brand awareness and exposure, but how exactly is PR able to do it? Well, to address this question completely, here is a list of 10 ways through which PR and communications can make your brand reach new levels:
- What’s Your Story?
Whether you hire a person from your own company for the job or if you give your project to a company, in both the cases your story will have an impact and so you need to have a story. A story doesn’t necessarily have to be entertaining, enticing and completely out of the world. Sometimes, even some simple sentences on how you reached new heights and how the idea travelled to your brain can also do wonders.
- Hiring a PR Agency
The benefit of hiring a PR company would be that they are not just good story tellers but also great listeners. Let’s take Australia for instance, or more specifically Melbourne; PR &Communications Melbourne have companies which do not only listen to your story but modify it in a way that it molds with the recent events and stories and what is trending. This gives you an edge and the same goes for your brand.
- Content Writing:
Content is one of the most powerful tools of all times. One cannot say that it is a recent invention but one can surely say that it is finally being used in ways that pays off. Marketing techniques also include content based marketing and same goes for PR. While it is necessary for people to understand that unlike marketing, PR won’t give immediate results with respect to sales, but it sure builds a permanent trust amongst the consumers. Another significant part of content writing is to stay updated. No matter what your brand is about, you can always link it with issues that are more in trend and to talk about something that is in news will only bring good. Just make sure that your content for press releases or other related stuff is on point.
- Truth:
While it is a fact that you sometimes cannot completely be honest about something, and not just in business but in different situations that you encounter during your life, being honest when it comes to PR is a core to success. This is significant because you are talking about your company and related information. If you lie about something, hide the truth, or even elongate the actual version of truth, it might come back running at you. While the PR and media possess the powers of making your brand known, if something went wrong, they can backfire anytime. Hence, it is the key; be honest about your company and PR will do wonders.
- Using Social Media as a Tool:
Well, this one might sound misleading and in some ways a bit negative, but it is not. Using social media is right because it is there for a reason. Now, we know that marketing utilizes all these platforms quite efficiently but a little bit of mix and match will be of no harm to anyone, will it? Plus, it is also necessary because public relations obviously deals with public, and when your consumers aren’t satisfied in any capacity, they might end up giving negative comments about you on social media, which you need to keep a check of.
- Know What is Trending:
As mentioned above in one of the point, PR can really not help you much if you don’t make an effort in keeping up with the latest trends. If you want brand awareness, you need to be more aware. Also, if you think that this is something you may not be able to do completely, you should maybe just hire an agency that can take care of all these chores.
- Contact an Influencer:
This is comparatively a recent but delightful addition to the ways PR can give exposure to your business. We all know that without a doubt, the world of social media belongs to bloggers and vloggers; they can make or break anyone they want to, if they have reached a certain level. Contacting them for recommending you will definitely bring in positive change.
- Ambassadors:
Similar to the above point, an ambassador will help built in your relations with public on another level. Through this you cannot just make sure that people think that your product is authentic, but will also be able to make an impact.
- What People are Hearing About you Should be Good:
Not all news or press will be good; there can be people and things that are criticized upon. What you can do to fix this is built up a new source for your brand. Have a website which posts daily news that is authentic.
- The Media Network:
Well, we all really wish that our brand should be known for its work and nothing else should come in our way. However, the reality is that it is the second step; the first one is to build a media network, to know people from your industry and make sure that they can trust you, like you and at some point recommend you. Once you are past that step, you then need to make sure that you don’t compromise on quality so that people, who stop by; become your permanent customers!