Can you still imagine having a world without social media? A world where you haven’t the ability to share at any moment what you want, by yourself. I agree that’s hard, but less than 20 years ago, that was the case. As an organization, you were dependent on a 3rd party to made sure your information would be shared with the rest of the world. This means that you as an organization had less control over how your message will be published.
In this blog I will not only talk about the roots of Public Relations, but also how to be successful in it. Breakthrough lines of
The greatest showman P.T. Barnum said once “Ever Publicity is good publicity” but I think that is something to think about twice. If your company comes in bad daylight because of negative attention, it can cost you a lot of money or even worse, ruin your company.
I believe more in what Edward Bernays said; Public relations should apply social science research and behavioral psychology to complaints and messages. Why? Because that is how you know where your audience is interested in and even more important; how you send your message as a publisher to your audience.
What is PR?
Personally, I thought that Public Relations was more about advertising and the communication between the company and the target group. I thought public relations were the ones making the ads and plans to trigger the people. I am not wrong, but it is so much more than I thought.
The main difference between early public relations and public relations nowadays is that now, you need to have a strategic communication plan that builds a relationship between your company and your audience, which was not necessary for the past.
How to be succesful in PR
To be successful in public relations today you just don’t write an article, you have to tell a story. A short story, because we have a short attention span, literally less than 8 seconds is the average on something we read.
What to be succesful in PR? Work on your planning and brainstorming a lot!
As a company, you want to make sure that the content you show fits with your audience. That is not as easy as it looks likes, especially with all the competitions nowadays is having a good strategy a must. AdAge.com gives five tips to make your content resonate with consumers; the content must be applicable yo your audience’s behavior and interests, you are competing with the rest of the world to get attention, so you must be different, hats why you have to create breakthrough moments. Cross-platform, your content can inspire a cultural movement, Be visible and ever-changing.
Because the PR-sector is constantly changing, it is important to be pro-active; read stories, look for new content and analyze what trends might be coming up. Dare to try out new content so you can see what works!
~ Daphne Nierop, DFreshWriting
Daphne Nierop 