The shrinking PR landscape has inspired is a massive shift in the way we do our work. When done correctly, public relations has so much to offer.
Enter the age of People Relations, as we like to call it over here at Indika Communications. Being professionals in this field, it has become our be all and end all in fact.
This plays out in two ways. Firstly, we need personal relations with our target audience. The way we do this is through how, when and most importantly what news we’re communicating on behalf of our clients. Consumers these days engage more with brands that are aligned to their personal values than ever before.
With much more news out there, feeds are constantly curated accordingly. It doesn’t help that fake news has made credibility so fragile. Careful consideration has to be applied because spray and pray as a strategy will get you exactly nowhere.
The second way personal relations play out is with our media. Gone are the days when you could issue an article to media and automatically see lots of coverage. Nowadays, there needs to be more time and effort given to follow up and building rapport.
One of the challenges the pandemic has delivered to us is not being able to maintain relationships the way we used to. I mentioned earlier that newsrooms are shrinking and to add fuel to fire, journalists change so often. This means we must pitch to new people all the time and to get them to understand who our client is and why there is value in using our content, further exacerbating the challenges.
What this also means is that more work needs to go into the planning before the actual content is written. Some of the questions you need to ask are:
- Why are we speaking about this topic?
- Is this what my target media is writing about?
- What is the value for the target media by using this topic?
To answer these questions, you need to become an advisor to your clients. Yes, they pay for your execution services but to truly add value, you will need to proactively inform your client about things they wouldn’t ordinarily know on their own.
One way to overcome the challenge of securing PR coverage, businesses can use their other marketing assets to reach their target audience. Assets like social media, website, direct mailers, to name a few. Collaboration is also key. Aligning with marketing activity can also help get the message across.
In conclusion, public relations is dead – thank goodness for that, and we welcome the rise of people relations.