( PUBLICITY: PART 1 of 2)
The popularity and use of free publicity historically increases when the economy tanks. In the midst of this seemingly extended downturn, PR is certainly gaining priority in the business-to-business marketing mix. At the same time, PR is changing significantly. So how can you refine your PR to realize greater results?
PART 1 of our series will examine how PR has changed, and how your PR program can change to leverage new PR opportunities. PART 2 will focus on the specifics of PR distribution options.
As always, please share your comments and personal experience to bring some reality to our discussion!
PR Has Changed
So, how has PR changed? Not to overstate, but in the last few years PR has changed more than in the last 30 years combined. How? The changing roles of journalists and marketing practitioners, and the rapidly increasing use of social media in PR.
No doubt, the recession has taken a toll on journalists with layoffs, and those remaining having greater workloads, tightening budgets, and added responsibilities of writing for multiple mediums. According to the 2010 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey, 59% of traditional (print) journalists are the author of a blog, and are also expected to contribute to online news, Twitter and other channels.
With greater workload, the research tools used by journalists might identify opportunities for marketing practitioners. Not surprisingly, Google and other search engines rank highest. 95% in 2010 per the PRWeek survey, followed by company websites (93%), Wikipedia (47%), newswires (36%), social networks (33%), and blogs (32%).
Social Media Emergence
While the hype of social media pervades marketing practitioners, the use of social media for publicity is growing rapidly, and becoming a major part of both journalist and practitioners PR activities.
According to the survey, in 2010 79% of journalists have a Facebook profile, 46% have a LinkedIn profile, and 58% have a Twitter profile. Only 11% have no profiles. Twitter realized the most dramatic increase from just 22% in 2009.
In addition, 43% of PR practitioners use social networks to pitch media, with 76% using Twitter and 49% using Facebook. One of the key reasons practitioners use social media? Search engine results! Often posts to social media channels rank higher than even company websites for key search terms. And as noted above, journalists use search engines 93% of the time for research.
A discussion of PR and social media would be incomplete without acknowledging the growing importance of blogs. Per above, 59% of traditional (print) journalists write blogs. In addition, 45% of journalists have quoted a blog in an article, and journalists use both general blogs (24%) and company blogs (23%) for research. On the practitioner side, 66% are targeting bloggers more than before.
“The corporate, brand or subject matter blog can be the hub of an integrated PR program, using social media channels for news distribution,” suggests Neil M. Brown, Managing Partner at Fusion B2B.
The New Rules of PR
So what are the implications of the changing PR landscape to practitioners or client-side marketers? Clearly PR strategies and tactics should embrace these changes, and leverage the opportunities.
“Now more than ever, practitioners should be deploying blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube profiles. Wikipedia pages. Bookmark and Share links on website pages. The blog and all profiles should be linked to the website, which should have RSS feeds. News announcements should be formatted to include links to these assets and other relevant information sources,” shares Neil M. Brown.
Fusion B2B is a good example of effective PR and integrated social media. Heather Hawes, Account Manager for Fusion B2B agency sums it up. “Just a couple of years ago, we would email a news announcement to trade editors. We still distribute to trade editors, but we also post news on our websites and blogs with RSS feeds, use Twitter, Facebook, and social Bookmarking tools to distribute the news and submit to free news distribution services. If the news item is big or strategic enough, we will submit to paid distribution services. Finally, we can measure placements with alerts and searches. Its faster, deeper and more measurable.”
What are your PR experiences? Please comment below. And by all means, Retweet, Share and Bookmark. For automatic alerts, sign up for email feeds of all Construction Marketing Blogposts above.
Next: PUBLICITY, PR Distribution Options.
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of the Week
09/08/2010 at 5:32 pm Permalink
This is a great indication that Public relations never stop growing.:) Though it change in a way, its now more in connected with social media, marketing and SEO which all in all provides better exposure and publicity.:)
09/08/2010 at 11:49 pm Permalink
What would marketing be without PR? Hard to think of public relations without social media nowadays… Great article. Thanks.
28/12/2011 at 6:42 am Permalink
Back in the day, PR was cultivation of the few to educate the many. Now PR educates the many with a real conversation. http://wp.me/p1zh4W-If