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Public Relations 101 for Everyone

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Calling for startups founders, entrepreneurs, aspiring PR people, Comms practitioners or just anyone who wants to know how to strategically get the word out and not paying a bomb to do so.

Let’s leverage on the power of Public Relations (PR)! Learn from Yan Lim, CEO of iOli Communications or better known as PR Evangelist among the entrepreneurial and start-ups ecosystem, Yan helps the start-up community scale their businesses by educating the market through workshops and trainings to better understand the need of PR in today’s age of business and leverage on PR to create awareness about their businesses without creating a big hole in their pockets.

1. So what exactly is PR? 

2. How to plan a basic and yet effective PR campaign as a startup?

3. How to identify your image as it stands?

4. The difference between PR, Advertising and Marketing.

5. Know your audience. Identify them.

6. Finding angles for news stories.

7. The basics of writing a good press release that will be picked up by media (including hands on training). 

8. The how’s of responding to news stories that affect you.

9. The who’s who in the press.

10. How to approach media (pitching).

11. Learn how to manage the press (media relations).

12. What not to do!

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Traditional PR vs. Digital PR: What You Need to Know

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Public Relations

According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), public relations is defined as a strategic communications process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. An “organization” can be can anything from a brand, company, or an individual. There are two forms of public relations, traditional PR and digital PR, which are differentiated by tactics, including the way these relationships are built and the channels in which they reach their audience.

Traditional PR

The media tactics that fall under the umbrella of traditional public relations are diverse, such as event coordination, crisis communications, reputation management, trade shows, sponsorship opportunities and press release distribution. The most prominent initiative of traditional PR is press outreach with special focus in traditional media outlets such as newspapers, television and radio. Professionals who work at traditional PR firms are likely to have arolodex of media contacts they engage with often who are familiar with their clients.

Traditional PR can be very successful in terms of increasing brand awareness. However, exact metrics on audience reach are much more difficult to track. For example, broadcast and print numbers are estimations onpotential audience or the average number of readers per month, making the question of “how many people actually read or saw my clients feature?” a bit hard to answer. Numbers aside, a key component of traditional PR is focusing on brand positioning within a media placement. Traditional publicists will be looking to see how their client is portrayed, how the messaging is communicated and how many times the brand is mentioned throughout the placement.

The traditional PR route also requires a bit of patience, as print publications will require along-lead time. This means publicists need to research which topics are being covered in print magazines in which month and the corresponding publishing date. Outreach may not produce results for quite some time, which can be challenging for both publicist and client. Nonetheless, traditional PR is much more than media placements and your PR firm is likely to have diverse tactics that work best for your business.

Traditional Takeaways

Traditional public relations is still relevant in today’s highlydigitized world and will be able to encompass a wide range of components attached to a PR campaign. Positive, extensive brand building will be the main role of a traditional PR and this is something that will always be worth it.

Digital PR

The tactics involved in digital public relations are relatively similar to those of traditional. Building relationships and securing placements are at the forefront of this digital arm, however, digital PR has the added benefit of impacting SEO and link building across the web. These measurable, digital tactics provide tangible results and insight.

Another key differentiator of digital PR is the able to build connections with bloggers and influencers, who are key players in the digital space. These digital influencers often have just as much authority, if not greater reach, than traditional figures, and come with an extremely loyal following. Similar to traditional publicists, digital PR specialists will often have established relationships with bloggers in a given industry who they work with regularly and will share their content often. This can be in a blog post with followed links, impacting the client’s website’s domain authority or social shares. Digital platforms have ashort-lead time and a pick up may result in a same day placement, or at most, in a few weeks.

While a digital agency may notemphasize elements of traditional PR, like event planning and trade shows, it will have its own unique set of benefits. Digital PR uses measurement tools like Moz’s Open Site Explorer and Google Analytics to track the power of a digital placement. Google Analytics allows you to track how many users on a website are clicking a link to your client’s site. You can completely track the user’s experience from first clicking the link within a placement through to the brand’s site and how they engage with the site. This information is invaluable and will impact your tactics moving forward by which initiatives should continue, discontinue or be altered.

Digital Takeaways

Digital public relations is measurable, immediate and produces easily sharable content. The realm of digital PR may be more specified than that of traditional, but it will help grow your brand online and make waves in a constantly evolving digital world.

The Right Fit

Determining whether traditional or digital PR is best for your business is a difficult question to answer. There is a great deal of overlap in tactics, for example, if you are reading a Sunday newspaper, it is very likely the same piece will run online the following week, or vice-versa.

The best way to decide which route to go is to first determine your business goals. Will the needs of your business be better executed in the traditional or digital space? Or perhaps, both?

It is not uncommon to employ both a traditional and a digital agency to completely cover your bases. If this is the way you choose to go, be sure to put your agency contacts in touch with each other so they can discuss objectives and avoid any overlap.

Source: Huffington Post

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6 Common Mistakes of DIY Public Relations

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As a public relations expert, I’ll let you in on a little secret — you can do it yourself.

I can, naturally, also explain why you should not do it on your own. Frankly, there are many, many good reasons not to. Like most things you may be able to pay for, carpentry or air travel for examples, it’s usually best to pay a pro.

Still some people chose to go it alone. And whether by bravado or lack of funds – let’s face it, entrepreneurs can’t always afford even entry-level PR support – I’ve seen plenty of people try. That means I’ve seen the DIYers make some pretty basic mistakes too. Here are six frequent mistakes entrepreneurs and others make when doing their own PR that you’ll want to avoid if you try to do it yourself:

1. Not understanding news value.

This could also be called “having the right expectations” — it’s essentially the same thing. As you start a PR journey, understand that it’s a virtual certainty that what you have to say and what you’re doing is simply not newsworthy.

I am sure you think it is. But, trust me when I tell you it’s probably not. Unless you’re literally curing cancer or your company is on a path to hit uber-type revenue numbers, your story simply isn’t news. The New York Times isn’t going to profile you and asking for that, or expecting it, is only going to unmask you as an amateur who does not understand what news is.

To even be considered as news, what you want covered has to be of broad general interest and truly unique. It can’t be just of interest to your market or to your customers. If that’s the case, find and pitch a trade publication in your market — not a general news outlet. Even then, expect that what you have to say may not be news.

2. Understanding urgency.

You can also trust me when I tell you that reporters and editors get hundreds (yes, hundreds) of pitches and news releases and announcements and interview offers every day. Standing out is difficult and many people doing their own PR miscalculate that the way to break through is to be urgent.

Wrong.

Urgency on your part is not news urgency. News writers and columnists and others have genuine breaking news they must cover. Like fires and political scandals — your desire for press coverage does not translate to urgency in news inboxes or phone lines. Even worse, urgency can lead to over-hyping and, worse still, yelling. Don’t ever try to convey urgency by yelling at a reporter. Different font sizes and colors (red) don’t work either. Those who try that are usually, rightfully banished to the “don’t ever contact me again” folder.

If you have news that is time sensitive — by this I mean deadline oriented — calmly say so in the first sentence. For example: our product will be live on our website this Tuesday. But don’t assume that even this means you’ll get coverage. See above about understanding news value.

3. Over-editing.

Nine times in 10, what you’re writing isn’t going to be enshrined next to William Shakespeare’s work as great literature. Don’t over think it. Don’t spend weeks editing a pitch or press release. Get to your point, make your point and move on. If your press outreach is short, easy to read and easy to understand, that’s a win. Take it.

Also, if a reporter or editor bites on your story, don’t get hung up on trying to edit their work. Never argue style and insist that something should be “but” instead of “however.” Let the writers write. Argue too much or get bogged down into where commas should go and reporters and editors may decide your next press release just isn’t worth the trouble.

4. Me too-isms.

Novice PR people often also make the mistake of trying to argue why they weren’t included in specific stories. If you sell air freshener and a big paper just wrote a story on air fresheners, it’s tempting to write the reporter and ask, “Why didn’t you cover me? How could you write about that and not include me?”

That does not work. The story is already written so resist the urge to argue about the cargo of a ship that’s already left port. Instead, use it as an opportunity to get on the next boat leaving town. Write, “Great story, I am sharing it with my colleagues and clients. If you return to this topic for future stories, I’d be happy to talk to you about what I see in the market and how we’re different.”

5. Not doing research.

For the sake of everything holy, before you rip off a press release or make a pitch, do your homework.

Not understanding what the outlet covers, what the reporter writes about or whether they already wrote about it is wasting everyone’s time and making clear you either don’t know what you’re doing or don’t care. Neither is good.

While you’re at it, look up how to format a press release or media pitch. You don’t have to follow it to the letter but you should know there’s no such thing as a 700-word pitch. That’s not a pitch, that’s a rookie mistake.

6. Asking for help.

Asking for help is a good thing. But if you’re doing your own PR, you could ask the wrong people for help or misread the value of good PR.

If you make a pitch or send a press release and it’s not covered, don’t follow up and ask the reporter why they didn’t cover it or ask them for tips for getting covered next time. That’s not their job. Making a good, newsworthy, interesting story is your job. Or the job or your PR team if you have one.

Speaking of, don’t ask PR people for free help. Sure, they can probably help you write a better press release or e-mail their personal media contacts for you. But that’s what they get paid to do so asking them to do it for free disrespects the value of the service. If you sold air fresheners, you’d think it was odd if someone came to you said, “you know, I’d like to freshen my air. Could you give me some for free?”

If you want — or need to — do PR on your own, you can. Putting in some effort beforehand and avoiding common mistakes like these will help you get the coverage you want and build a good PR platform over the long run.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com