The Public Relations Blog

Planning proactively for potential crises with 3 key strategies

Lately you can’t turn on the television, log in to social media or pick up a newspaper without noticing a company’s public relations crisis unfolding. We have all seen what happens when a company isn’t prepared for an unexpected situation. It spirals out of control and creates a media storm of negativity. Your company can’t always prevent a bad situation from happening, so the more prepared you are, the better skilled you are to handle unforeseen circumstances.  Preparation can quickly turn a negative situation into a positive outcome.

Use this checklist to make sure you’re optimizing your relationship with your PR firm

Here are fifteen mistakes your company might be making when hiring a public relations firm:

Learn why the location of your company and customers mean so much for your visibility and brand position

When discussing media buys or target audience, your marketing team or public relations agency probably throws around terms like media region anddesignated market area (DMA). What do these things really mean for your business and bottom line? Understanding vital terms helps you make smarter, more informed decisions about what’s best for your business.

Use PR to avoid, endure and outlast whatever trouble strikes your company

A public relations crisis can happen to any company of any size at any time. Sometimes, they happen quickly, like the scandalous retirement of the CEO or inappropriate comments made by a top executive. Others develop slowly, like disgruntled employees whose behavior eventually begins to affect customer service.

While looking at your website stats, you discover two or three top performing pieces of content that appeal to individuals within your buyer’s journey. Congratulations! Great content is your foundation; you use effective writing to appeal to individuals who could purchase your product.

How do you build upon that foundation to attract more visitors and move those individuals through the buyer’s journey?

Don’t bore your followers on social media; use an engaging strategy to propel your brand

After auditing your company’s social media activity and comparing it to some of your competitors, you may find that your social media engagement isn’t effectively telling your brand’s story. Your posts are coming out more blah than brilliant. More sigh than sassy. More flat than fierce. You need to up your social media game.

This is one story on the value of blogging. Read how 5 reasons blogging is important, Why blogging is worth it, 4 ways blogging can improve your PR efforts, 3 overlooked reasons to blog, and Why you should care about blogging for more.

Effective marketing tools that educate and inform your prospects

Your phone rings just as you’re heading to lunch. Your automatic reaction is to answer it. Ten minutes later, you’re finally hanging up the phone feeling frustrated and hungry as a result of the unsolicited call. You might wonder if there’s a better way for your company to reach prospects without angering them. Luckily, there is!

Create content topics that will interest your potential customers

Creating content that’s relevant and valuable to your audience is one of the eight key elements of successful content marketing. At first, the topic ideas will be plentiful since there are obvious subjects and issues to address. As you dive deeper, however, topics will be harder to find.

We’ve put together a handy infographic for you to print out and keep at your desk that offers five easy tools to use to find great content topics. Also, check out five more ways to create blog post topics.

Learn 10 core attributes that help attract and engage your readers

Writing for your buyer personas and your audience is tough. Effective writing is tougher. As a professional in the communications field, creating content is requisite. Your writing, or storytelling, needs to encourage your readers to do more than skim your content. So how do you inspire readers to stop, think, learn and consider your brand?

Holidays can throw a wrench into your media-pitching efforts. When reporters and editors go on vacation in the middle of your back-and-forth, you can lose momentum and opportunities. Therefore, you should be aware of upcoming holidays and vacation seasons so you can prepare and plan accordingly. This doesn’t mean that as soon as you start connecting with reporters you should ask them if they’re taking any trips. Instead, use these four tips to avoid losing media-pitching traction during holidays and vacations.