When you’re looking at ways to drive people to your business, you’re likely to start with marketing. You create ad campaigns and invest a lot in getting people to pay attention to your brand.
You may be missing out on a critical piece to making your ads effective. Public relations is a way to get your message in front of potential customers in a way that they prefer to learn about you.
About 70% of people want to learn about your business through articles, not ads. That makes using PR a must.
What are the top public relations trends that you can use today?
Keep reading to find out.
1. PR Is Central to Integrated Campaigns
As the PR agency lessons continue to teach us, the world of PR is changing rapidly. It’s no longer enough to say that you have an earned media piece to prove your worth.
That earned media piece has to fit into a brand’s larger story. A brand appears in more places than ever. Think of all of the social media networks, magazines, newspapers, and websites a brand can be.
All of those touches have to be consistent with the brand’s messaging. That includes all earned media placements.
2. Trust Remains a Huge Part of PR
In public relations for small business, you have to work with a lot of trust issues. There is a declining level of trust in the media, thanks to the war on “fake news” and journalists across the world.
Internal audiences don’t trust their employers to do the right thing anymore. External audiences don’t have a high level of trust in brands.
It’s up to you to observe these breakdowns in trust and overcome them. That’s where authenticity comes into play.
Authenticity is why people tend to trust influencers on social media more than an ad. Authenticity is why a steak brand is suddenly seen as a voice of logic and reason in the middle of a pandemic.
The more you can position a brand to be authentic to consumers, the more likely you are to succeed in your campaign.
3. Data Is King
How can you measure your success beyond earned media placements? The media landscape is so fragmented, that you can’t possibly rely on earned media statistics.
You have to find ways to measure the impact of your work. Vanity metrics such as likes, impressions, and followers don’t have a lot of meaning.
Look for the KPIs that really matter, such as leads created, appointments scheduled, and revenue generated. Those all contribute to the bottom line and prove a return on investment.
The Top Public Relations Trends for Small Business
Public relations is often overlooked by small businesses because it’s not easy to do well or measure. PR is an important part of your business, and it goes hand in hand with marketing.
These public relations trends show that PR is based on trust and authenticity. Public relations in small business plays an important part in getting your message out to a broad audience.
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