What PR Trends Do You Need To Keep An Eye On This Year?
We’ve outlined a few of the most important PR trends you need to be aware of for 2015.
Public Relations (PR) trends can sometimes be difficult to follow. There are many more factors today that can impact PR for a company that didn’t exist 10 or even 5 years ago. With that in mind, here are the developing trends in public relations for 2015 that we’re keeping an eye on for you.
Public Relations and Social Media Integration
The integration of public relations with marketing and social media is becoming much more prevalent for businesses across nearly every industry. With greater brand exposure across more channels constantly increasing, brand consistency is key!
As consumers are increasingly inundated with information, it is paramount that companies maintain brand consistency to cut through the noise. This means not only creating a streamlined, integrated approach with public relations, but also communicating the overall goals and brand of the company to all employees. After all, your employees are your number #1 brand ambassadors.
With the prevalence of social media one wrong tweet from an employee can cause a PR headache and quickly turn into a seemingly unmanageable firestorm overnight. And if your company doesn’t have a crisis communication plan in place, you can find yourself trying to spin your company out of spiraling disaster, which can often make things worse in the long term.
Visuals Are Critical When Writing A Press Release
Gone are the text-dense press releases of old. Image-rich press releases are critical in order to capture the attention of an audience that is over-stimulated with information.
Especially as consumers now search more on their mobile than their desktop, visuals are an absolute must. Images can swiftly and concisely communicate complex ideas, evoke emotions and compel readers to take action. In fact, research shows that articles and press releases with more than one visual are most effective at capturing the audience’s attention.
‘Niche Market’ Targeting For Better PR
An important trend in public relations is the shift from mass targeting to niche marketing. It’s difficult to grab anyone’s attention these days. The best way to successfully do so is by micro-targeting niche markets and finding audience subsets.
Any savvy marketing agency will make sure their PR and digital marketing teams are working together to discover and identify the most appropriate and profitable niche audiences to target with strategic marketing.
Quality Content = Quality Public Relations
There is a greater need for quality content in press releases and articles. Millennials (those born from the early ‘80s to the mid ‘90s) have outgrown PR fluff pieces that transparently pay lip service to the organizations that produced them.
Readers are looking for, and demanding, image-rich, information-driven content that gets to the point and can help them be better prepared for making smarter decisions.
When you provide quality content you have a better opportunity to earn your audience’s trust, and when it comes to the three types of media, earned can be the most powerful brand builder.
PR and SEO Are Increasingly Reliant Upon Each Other
Public relations is all about garnering publicity and advertising to elevate a brand’s visibility – that’s exactly what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is trying to do.
As we’ve discussed, PR is about providing image-rich, quality information, or providing value to the people who it matters to most – your niche market.
When they find it useful and helpful they show their love for your brand by linking to it and sharing it with others, which is a vote of confidence for your brand and all those links are one of the many key signals Google looks for when ranking your brand on search results.
SEO and PR are about elevating a brand, increasing its exposure and impacting a company’s bottom line. As we move deeper into 2015 and beyond, they are becoming increasing reliant upon each other for maximum effect.
All of these PR trends demonstrate a critical point – digital is an important factor for all of them. Make sure you’re prepared as you look towards 2016.
Tell us what you think. Did we miss any PR trends you’re aware of? We’d love to hear from you.
If you need help with your public relations, Verdin can help. Call us at 805-541-9005,contact us here or email us at [email protected].
