The Public Relations Blog

How to build long-lasting media relationships

When you think of media, you think about placement for your company’s product or service. However, media is much more than getting your story published. Pitching your story to the media is about creating long-term mutually beneficial relationships with journalists. How do you pitch so that journalists will pick your content and connect with you as a source for their future stories?

3 key points for maximizing the effectiveness of your PR strategy

Having been in the public relations game for nearly two decades, I’ve found that one question continues to plague our industry: How long will it take to see the value of public relations? Everything we do in business should net a return – that’s the whole point, right? PR has most certainly transitioned into a business of measurement. Where once clip books and impressions marked success, we must determine today’s campaign success by precise metrics and established goals.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a controversial topic for many marketers. With Google often changing its algorithms, some companies doubt whether SEO should remain an important part of their online marketing efforts. Google strives to bring the best search results to its users based on how people interact with content. By incorporating these techniques, you can optimize your company’s marketing endeavors.

Advice for students planning a public relations career

The school year is in full swing, and public relations students are likely juggling multiple class projects and thinking about the thing that’s on most college students’ minds: getting a job after college. Here are six tips to help students secure a great job in PR.

Use creative content to reach your audience

With search engines placing more emphasis on valuable content, a once-static website can now become a more dynamic calling card for any company. An optimal way to keep your website fresh is to create and maintain a well-crafted blog to attract new visitors and further build relationships with those who have visited previously. With greater focus on inbound marketing, companies are ditching aggressive sales and marketing approaches of yesteryear and replacing them with conscientious, thoughtful and strategic engagement to assert differentiation.

Blogs are evolving to incorporate useful and creative content in the form of videos and hyper-localized content. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you consider your blogging efforts.

How to make the most of your social media engagement

There is no doubt that social media marketing is very important. It allows companies to directly engage with their customers, build brand presence and ultimately grow their businesses. You can use various metrics to measure your social media strategy success. Some companies believe that the total number of followers or fans is what matters the most for having a well-established presence online. How do you determine the value of your social media following?

Invest wisely; don’t underspend on PR.

Most companies are looking to save money — especially on items they don’t believe are essential to success. You might think you should hire the low-cost public relations solution rather than finding the right solution for your company. However, choosing a cheaper solution instead of the solution that addresses your company’s needs may jeopardize your company in the future.

Public relations builds a company’s brand. It’s a vital element to success. Don’t endanger your company by underspending on PR. Use these four strategies to ensure you’re hiring the right PR solution for your company and not making mistake #5 of the 15 mistakes companies make when hiring a PR firm.

October 30. To most it’s just another day of the year. However, in the public relations and journalism worlds, it’s a day to celebrate. October 30 is National Publicist Day.

(See also: What’s the difference between publicity and public relations? Hint: PR strategists hate when we call them publicists.)

On this day in 1906, well-known public relations pioneer and productivity consultant Ivy Lee wrote the first documented press release.

6 tips to help you obtain news coverage for your company

Public relations professionals should understand their clients aren't looking to put a news release in a frame on their wall. They want a cover story or great feature story to frame. So how do you make it happen? There’s no sure-fire way to earn that coveted feature story placement. However, there are some things you can do to help make the dream a reality.

How to attract more traffic to your social media platforms

 Many companies rely on their social media strategy to help grow their business. Social media spreads the word about your brand, establishes your credibility, gets you more leads and brings you convertible traffic. Obviously, you want to use social media platforms to their full potential. The question is how? Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. There are, however, certain key steps that work to maximize your social media efforts.