By Amy Marie Orozco
January 28, 2015
There’s no debating that the Web has changed the rules of Public Relations. Yet, just as advances in automotive technology have not replaced the wheel, the fundamentals of PR remain the same.
According to the Public Relations Society of America, “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”
In the olden days, Public Relations relied on print and broadcast media to disseminate an organization’s message. Since the digital revolution, organizations use the traditional media models as well as social media. Social media – channels such as Web sites, blogs, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook – enables direct communication between them and their public.
Assuming your organization has a Web site, blog, or other Internet presence, the following three tools will get further your Public Relations expertise.
• A Media List is a targeted and focused list of journalists and social media channels to send your news. Along with contact information, the list includes names, title, and publication names. Individualize the list with information on story angle ideas, preferred method of contact, and best time to contact.
• A Media Kit is a pre-packaged set of promotional materials for an organization used for a product launch or other news announcement. Media kits should be in digital and hard copy (paper) formats. A kit’s contents vary depending on its purpose. Typical contents include a press release, company history, bios of executive team, and relevant artwork.
• Content Marketing is a technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action. Here’s an example: Writing a blog post on how to write an attention-grabbing headline. This is information that can be used by a reader, who is directed to a company’s blog (or other social media) when searching the Internet. Though by no means a relic, press releases are being replaced with content marketing.
The above is intended as a partial Public Relations primer. For everything else you want to know about marketing and public relations in the Digital Age but lack the knowledge to even know such questions exist, I highly recommend David Meerman Scott’s book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR.”
The metamorphosis of a single page press release into a cover story for Glass, a national trade magazine.
