The Public Relations Blog

A website that’s accessible to those with disabilities will get more customers

Ever since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, those with disabilities have been able to go places they were previously unable to, opening up many opportunities. While the main focus on ADA has been on physical locations, it’s also important to have websites that are easily accessible to those with disabilities.

Professional associations can be a huge help to your personal development and your company

Things are going well for your company; you’re getting clients and making money. But have you started networking?

Are you connecting with others in your industry? If not, your company might be stagnating, and you don’t even know it.

Why? If you’re not networking, you’re not building relationships with others in your field, which increases your risk of falling behind on the latest trends and new techniques. Not networking also limits the avenues in which you can improve yourself.

Put a smile on people’s faces with public relations content.

Tell me if you haven’t heard this one before: Public relations is a humorless industry that always must have 100% serious content.

Okay, you gotta admit that’s a pretty lame joke. Public relations has changed; it’s no longer the world of very serious content. Jokes and humor in your public relations content are becoming more and more common. If you’re not adding some humor to your public relations, then you’re missing out.

Previously, we’ve covered that you cannot guarantee earned media coverage. Anyone that attempts to offer you guaranteed results for public relations, much less guaranteed earned media coverage, is someone you don’t want to work with as a client since there are no guarantees in public relations. But, is there something you, as the client, can offer as a guarantee?

Is it possible to guarantee your story will get covered in earned media?

One key aspect of public relations is getting your story told in the media. This is called earned media, and it’s the one thing everyone wants from public relations plans. However, getting an earned media story is a long process that requires successful pitching, finding the right journalist(s) to pitch to, and allowing them to transform your story into theirs. The reward is well worth it, but the process is difficult.

An addiction to appearing in the media can throw your public relations efforts into disarray.

Everyone loves media appearances. Heck, one of the goals of public relations is to get your company in the media via positive appearances to increase awareness of your company or brand. Getting positive media appearances is never a bad thing, right? Not always.

Use data to prove the effectiveness of your public relations work.

Traditionally, some people believe it’s difficult to prove how successful a PR campaign is due to a lack of hard data showing how well the campaign worked. However, times have changed. With modern measurement techniques, PR campaigns now have data to back up claims about how successful a PR campaign was.

Data gathered from a PR campaign is vital to any public relations plan. It shows the proof of value for public relations efforts. Hard data lets you, your clients, and other departments visualize what worked and what didn’t. if someone higher up in your company asks for proof for how effective a PR campaign is, data will give them exactly what they want.

Changing your scheduled content can be best for your online PR plans 

Social media has given unprecedented power for companies to communicate directly with consumers. 

One way to fully take advantage of social media is to use scheduling features to have your content scheduled ahead of time. However, scheduling content ahead of time isn’t a panacea for how your company handles social media. Sometimes, you’ll have to cancel your scheduled content due to various situations that come up or risk immediate problems or missed opportunities. These situations can be either good or bad. 

So what situations should you cancel scheduled social media content for? There are three:

Make sure your audience sees the best of your company on all platforms.

Content is vital in the world of online public relations, especially since it’s the cornerstone of all online PR efforts. Great content can elevate your company in a way that makes it just as powerful as classic public relations content, such as interviews or being a guest speaker at a major industry conference.

However, you need a place to put content somewhere, and that “somewhere” is platforms. Platforms can be social media websites like Facebook and Instagram or your own site. But trends can change, and platforms that looked like they had potential a few years ago can be dead in the water. This can cause problems, as users will be seeing old and out-of-date content that might not no longer reflect your company’s current views and stances, which can easily damper your online PR.

Use scheduling to make your social media content reach the right people at the right time.

Social media is one of the cornerstones of online public relations. Its ability to reach so many people makes it a key component of any online public relations plan, no matter what platforms you intend to use. However, there’s one critical component companies starting their social media plans can overlook: the value of pre-scheduling their social media posts. 

It’s easy to simply post social media content once your team has developed it, but what really works is having content scheduled in a way that’s published at a great time and to have a backlog of content dating back weeks or even months so you’re fully prepared. There are plenty of tools that let you schedule social media content well in advance, both externally and offered by social media platforms.