With the rise of influencers and social media creators, many people have come to know PR as freebies shipped in aesthetic boxes to anyone who has an audience. However, PR is much more than that, so media update's Joreke Kleynhans gives five underrated PR tools the spotlight.
The purpose of public relations is to establish and maintain a favourable public image. Brands want to be seen in a positive light by their audiences.
To have strong PR strategies, brands need to cover all of their PR bases, use multiple channels to reach people and employ a diverse range of tactics. Some of them are more obvious than others.
Mailing Lists
Most PR pros have mailing lists they use to send press releases to relevant publications. Direct mailing lists are less common, though. A direct mailing list for PR purposes can help brands reach their audiences directly.
This can assist in targeted campaigning, consistent communication and analytics like email open rates and click-through rates.
Media Monitoring
Media monitoring tracks mentions of your brand all throughout the media and sometimes social media. Brands can also track industry-related keywords or events.
Media monitoring services reduce brands' workloads in staying up-to-date on where they are being mentioned by doing the work on the brands' behalf. Staying updated on positive and negative press can help brands to respond quickly when issues arise or fully capitalise on positive press.
Search Engine Optimisation
By incorporating SEO into their PR strategies, brands can ensure that their press releases, media coverage, or owned content are discoverable by their audience.
SEO helps to increase brand visibility and improve audience targeting.
Competitor Benchmarking
Competitor benchmarking involves analysing the media coverage of a brand and benchmarking it against its competitors.
This tool can help brands identify gaps in their own strategies where they can stand out from competitors and identify trends in their own media coverage.
Influencer Partnerships
Influencers have significant power in consumers' buying patterns and audiences’ perception of brands. Partnering with influencers relevant to your brand can, therefore, make a big difference in your PR success.
Influencer partnerships can increase your brand’s reach, earned media coverage and the effectiveness of relationship building.
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*Image courtesy of Canva