The Public Relations Blog

Media fame, whether or not it’s the result of a scandal, acts like a proverbial carrot dangled before business owners and investors who flock to it like moths to a flame. Intense paparazzi-style blitzes follow, especially when an ordinary organization takes on a high-profile staff member. Many companies fall prey to “hiring stunts” with very little actual return on investment beyond initial get-it-quick publicity.

Axia Public Relations’ guide is a must for anyone who works with or uses PR

Is your PR firm doing everything possible to contribute to your company’s success? You may have garnered a few media hits or organized a sensational event, but surely there must be more you can do. With the Axia Public Relations’ e-bookMaximizing Your Public Relations Investment, you can learn how to use PR for all its worth.

PR initiatives can help you at every stage of the sales cycle and assist in getting a jump on the competition, especially when you know how to use every possible tool and tactic. This helpful e-book is full of strategies and tips to help you keep up the momentum and extend the reach of your PR efforts.

In the world of art, every picture tells a story. In the world of business, every company has a story to tell. Successful companies know how to distill their narratives into compelling, brand-defining messages as artfully as a master storyteller.

In the crowded marketplace, companies that enlist the help of PR pros to strategically craft their messages increase their chances of standing out among competitors. But it’s not enough to print these key messages on marketing materials and publish them on web sites.

Meeting and exceeding your customers’ digital expectations is crucial to the future and success of your business. Metadescription tags are your final lifeline in your efforts to attract users to your website. The best creative in the world won’t get you anywhere if you don’t have the right strategy supporting it.

The right response can turn complaints into kudos.

Often, customers will leave online reviews that are unwarranted or over the top. Something about the experience they had with a company gets under their skin and they are overcome with anger toward the company.

They might decide to leave a review in which they exaggerate the negative experience they had or they might even leave a review that is a downright lie. No matter what an angry customer writes, companies need to be ready to address these reviews.

When responding to a negative review, there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. Here are some tips for responding in a way that keeps the peace with your upset customers:

Use these tips from PR to guide you

September is Ethics Awareness Month, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK for your company to misbehave for the other 11 months of the year. This recognition serves to remind us of the evergreen importance of ethics.

The Public Relations Society of America details a stringent code of ethics to address challenges and serve as a guide for ethical actions within the industry. With help from PR, you can learn about the importance of ethics for your own business and improve your chances of getting it right.

A public relations mentor of mine spent many years hammering home a philosophy that he lived by not only professionally, but personally: the THINK principle, which serves as a series of governing rules for communication.

Public relations professionals are trained communications experts often sought after to convey information with clarity, but when I first heard this philosophy, I found it rather perplexing. Is it really possible to hold to these principles with each sentence we utter? It seems like an awful lot to consider. The THINK philosophy is outlined as follows:

Information overload can be a dealbreaker for many

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, storage online is not a problem; we can write as many words as we want without fear of eating up too much space. However, while it may seem handy at first, research has shown two things:

Consumers will actively shy away from content that’s too long.

Consumers want information as quickly as possible.

It isn’t a good idea to overwhelm your customers with too much information.

When you know what to measure, you can reach your business goals more easily.

Are you getting your money’s worth from your public relations efforts? It’s a question asked every day in conference rooms and strategy sessions, but many companies don’t know how to tell or even what they should measure in order to determine the answer.

No company of any size can afford to waste money. You need to ensure that PR initiatives are working to increase your customer base, visibility and profits. With help from Axia Public Relations and our PR PRoof system, you can take away the guesswork when measuring PR success.

PR can show you how to take control of your online image

Have you ever watched a small snowball roll downhill? If you don’t stop it, it keeps gathering more snow until it’s too big to handle. One negative comment or bit of incorrect information about your company on social media can create the same phenomenon as that small snowball.

Therefore, it is vital to your business that you manage social media content before it develops into a crisis. With help from PR, you can take control of your image and reputation.