Course Content
How To “Do” PR: The Beginner’s Guide
You know what they say: There is no such thing as a stupid question. But just in case you’re feeling a little shaky making your entrance into the world of Public Relations (PR), we’ll answer the basic ones for you.
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How to Improve Your Email Outreach Effectiveness
For every marketing campaign you need a solid email outreach strategy. Ann Smarty shows how to use backlink tools, influencers & more to maximize outreach.
7 PR Tools You Need To Be Using Every Day
While you PRs may be the envy of the office, we know the reality. It’s not all press fan-fare and high octane crisis management.
Crisis Management: The Ultimate Guide
With the help of a few PR experts, we’ve put together some key information on what crisis management actually involves, and how best to tackle it.
How To Develop An Outreach Strategy: 15 Tips From Experts
We decided to interview 15 inbound marketers, and ask them how they develop their outreach strategy, and their 1 greatest outreach challenge.
How To Measure PR: The Definitive Guide
The PR industry has traditionally been lousy at measuring the value of its work. That’s all changing, with the introduction of robust frameworks, tools, and greater access to data.
How To Pitch to Journalists: Expert Tips From Techcrunch, NYT & More
The brutal truth is that most journalists receive 100’s of pitches everyday. If your pitch isn’t 100% perfect, it will be ignored. So what are some tips to ensure your pitch will be read?
Newsjacking Dos and Don’ts From a BBC Journalist Turned PR
You scan the paper and search the website and there it is…your brand or client’s name. And then again. And again and again. BOOM! Newsjacking success!
7 Best Practice PR Tips For Your Next Campaign
Whether you’re racing to nab the headline of a premier industry publication or securing an interview for your CEO before your competition takes the slot - there’s a sense of excitement in everything you do as part of a PR team.
How two types of PR boosted our free trials by up to 108%
Good publicity is invaluable. Not only does it put your brand front and centre – more often than not it can lead to real ROI.
A 2 Step Process For Coming Up With PR Campaign Ideas
Coming up with top quality campaign ideas can be hard. Finding the time to come up with them can be tricky, and putting your neck on the line by saying “This idea will absolutely work” can take courage.
7 PR Trends in 2021: The Story So Far
We know, the idea of anything being definite or predictable seems laughable after the last year we had. But if I do believe one thing, it’s that we are adaptable. In fact, a lot of us changed everything faster than we thought was even conceivable.
The Definitive Guide To PR Reporting
PR people everywhere are ultimately accountable to various groups of stakeholders and have to inform them about what they planned to do – and whether they achieved it or not (within a given timeframe and budget).
How To Write And Distribute Press Releases
Are you looking to build a stronger brand and acquire more backlinks to boost your authority?
How To Land Top Tier Media Coverage In 13 Simple Steps
Whenever we speak to people outside of the industry about how we come up with ideas for campaigns, very often the answers I hear are a little off the mark.
Digital PR Specialist Course
    About Lesson

    How to “do” PR in 4 easy steps

    Let’s start at the beginning, what does it mean to “do” PR?

    PR is about building and maintaining a positive public image for a company or organization. Professionals in this field create media, from press releases to social media messages, that shape public opinion of the company or organization and increase awareness of its brand.

    So how do you go a step further and start “doing” your own PR? Here are some important ways to start. 

    1) Make it easy to write about your brand

    If you want press coverage, your company needs to do something worth writing about. As a rule of thumb, you want to make information about your business easily accessible. 

    A simple way to do this is by making a press information landing page on your organization’s website. This should include things like company basics, such as: 

    • a company and product description
    • product images
    • a video explainer
    • links to all past press coverage 
    • contact information

    An Example of Volkswagen’s PR Newsroom

    2) Keep your fingers on the pulse of your industry

    Public relations can change in the blink of an eye. A single tweet can send your brand into PR crisis management mode, a customer’s kind comment could go viral – all of this is to say that you need to keep your finger on the pulse. 

    PR monitoring tools can make this a lot easier. These platforms can provide important alerts, insights and spikes in conversation. 

    BuzzSumo has its own monitoring tool which scans blogs, news sites, forums and other online communities across the web, to show you what’s being published about the things most important to you and / or your brand.

    See how the BuzzSumo team uses its own tool to monitor different forms of PR, and generate a 108% uplift in free trial signups.

    Conducting some level of PR monitoring can help you find quick-win media opportunities, avert brand crises, and get ahead of your market.

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    3) Know your area of expertise

    Own what you know. Everyone in your business is already an expert. They know the ins and outs of what you do and whatever that area may be should be the north star for all of your content. 

    Whether it’s your CEO talking to a top tier media outlet, or your CTO writing a blog article for a industry publication, use your company’s area of expertise to frame the conversation. That way you can gain credibility in your industry and with an audience of potential customers.  

    This also has the added benefit of promoting your brand while building real press relationships beyond product pushes.

    Why not try:

    • Submitting company experts as contributors to publications (ie. If you’re in SEO or Marketing, that might be as a Search Engine Journal contributor)
    • Putting experts forward as interviewees during PR email pitches
    • Submitting experts for awards to raise the profile of both the person and the brand
    • Putting experts up for industry talks
    • Featuring company experts as guests on webinars and podcasts

    4) Strike while the iron’s hot

    Keeping with the idea of industry content, it’s smart to offer leaders from your company as experts to comment on news stories. It’s an effective way to establish relationships with reporters. 

    For example, if you worked for an SEO company, it’d be fair to assume that your leadership team would have something to say when Google updates their algorithm. 

    Reporters are always looking for experts that can give their stories substance and new angles. If you’re looking for inspiration and stories you can jump on, why not try:

    • Subscribing to relevant newsletters
    • Setting up topic alerts
    • Monitoring Twitter trending feeds
    • Integrating trend stories into your most used platforms / workflows (ie. Use Feedly for curated newsfeeds)
    • Switch on social notifications when important trend spotting influencers post

    For more information, read these top newsjacking tips from a former BBC Journalist.