Alan DraperDo you know what works really well in marketing today? We mean, really, really well?
Like peanut butter and jelly.
Like mashed potatoes and gravy.
Like mayonnaise and French fries. (Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.)
What works really well is a combination of old and new, traditional and cutting-edge. It’s a combination of a proven pursuit and the latest trends in online marketing. Simply it, it’s the winning combination of social media and public relations – two fields that, believe it or not, go hand in hand.
When you have a fully operational social media presence, and incorporate time-tested principles of good PR outreach, you can achieve some remarkable things for your strategy. Here, we’ll spend a little time talking about the perfect marriage of PR and social media, as well as what you can do to more fully integrate both approaches into your campaigns.
PR: A Direct Street to Connection Town
First, we’ll talk a little about the role PR plays in today’s marketing world.
Traditional PR – you know, pitching to publishers, editors, and reporters, basically anyone who can grant access to the masses – has its place in today’s environment. It’s a good way to get a great story out to the public at large in a fairly targeted way, and can seriously augment the reach your digital marketing provides.
Going beyond traditional publications, you also have the capability of reaching bloggers, website owners, and influencers who can further spread the word (and generate nice, tasty backlinks to your website in the process).
All of this happens through good, old-fashioned PR – coming up with a superior angle on a story and getting others to jump on board with what you’ve created. This allows you to directly connect with your audience where they are, in the publications they like to read and consume.
Social Media: The Outlet of All Outlets
By now, everyone knows what social media is and can do. It’s your best opportunity to connect and engage with a wide audience on a level that encourages them to build stronger bonds with your brand.
But when you look at social media from a PR standpoint, you really see it for what it can be: the mother of all outlets.
In addition to newspapers, blogs, article directories, news aggregators, and the like, you have platforms teeming with people who crave content of any kind. Seriously, it’s like The Walking Dead out there, it’s just they crave stories instead of human flesh.
This makes social media one giant outlet for your story.
Putting It All Together: When Social Media and PR Meet
If PR is a good way to share stories, and if social media is a good outlet for those stories, then combining the two is a no-brainer.
The first thing you have to do is translate. Let’s say you have a story, or a piece you’ve written, or a press release. You want to bring it over to social media and use SM platforms to distribute it. You first need to translate it into easily-digestible chunks that are without the stock phrases you find in press releases and are instead full of quotable pieces and details.
Give it a brief but catchy headline, slap a pretty picture on it, and tweet it or post it out in delicious little pieces that encourage people to read more. Then, and only then, will they click on the entire thing.
Formats that work well include short, catchy titles; top-10 lists; “How To” pieces; numbered lists (i.e. “Three Ways to ___”); and a title that leaves people hanging and wanting to click to find out what happens next.
Using Social Media as a Pitching Platform
Quick: What is one seriously major part of good PR? If you said, “Connecting with influencers,” you’d be correct.
Quick (again): What is one thing that social media lets you do really, really well? If you said “Connect with influencers,” you’d be right again. Batting two for two.
Put both together and you have a proven way you can easily connect with influencers – from important people in the field to reporters and publishers – and share with them the pertinent details of your story.
For starters, reporters are all over social media. Many of them are active on Facebook and Instagram and virtually all have a Twitter account. The ones that are especially active crave good stories and love meeting up with potential sources.
Additionally, people whose attention you really want to attract – primarily because they have big audiences and can really amplify your message – are also active on social media. Think of social media as the world’s largest cocktail party. You can rub shoulders with a lot of influential people and use their connections to advance your brand’s message.
Tips to Make the Most of a Delicious PR-and-Social-Media Sandwich
If you want your message to resonate, and want people to like, share, and comment on your content, you need to tailor your message to be as appealing as possible.
To help do that:
– Be concise. Less is more. Enough said.
– Be helpful. The old-school way of doing PR is to just inform. It’s not enough to state the facts. You have to go the extra mile and provide something useful and helpful.
– Study your audience. How do they use social media? If they’re mostly about themselves, you have to make your content resonate on a personal level.
– Be personable. You don’t have to be personal, but it helps to be personable. The more humanity people can see in what you post, the further it will go.
– Make content visual. Convert a press release into an infographic and share that instead of info from the release itself. A picture goes a long way.
– Be mindful of the audience. When pitching, think: “What does this content do for the audience my target is trying to reach?”
– Publish on LinkedIn. You can now publish on LinkedIn – so what are you waiting for?
– Tie your expertise in with the news. If there’s something going on in your field, use your expertise to comment on it. Influencers and publishers are always looking for expert opinions. Be bold. Be an expert.
Social media and public relations go together like Bert and Ernie. Like ice cream and apple pie. Like the aforementioned mayo and fries. (Seriously. Try it.)
Adopting social media as a way to further your public relations goals and using platforms as a way to meaningfully advance a story and a message is a proven way to increase reach and get your branded messages in front of your target audience where they belong. Use them together to get in front of your targets and give the people what they want: great content that tells a great story.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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Such an excellent article, and so incredibly true.
Being directly involved in the press release distribution industry, we see this. We also have seen how people are now sharing their press release once it has been distributed and the results that they achieve are astounding.
PR & Social Media are truly key. We see it all the time. Individuals that send their press release and stop the car and get out at that point only see about 30% of the real results. Those who share their press release directly after distribution (by sharing the link) see huge success. Great article!
Michael
24-7 Press Release Newswire