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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

PR metrics – like the metrics associated with other relationship marketing disciplines (events, social media) – have been traditionally hard to come by.  But in today’s communications landscape, it’s a lot easier than it used to be to set data-driven KPIs that upper management can understand and appreciate.

1) Understand that Engagement is the Goal of a Data-Driven PR Program

In the modern messaging landscape, success = engagement. Whether we engage a traditional journalist and receive placement in the “Wall Street Journal” or engage an influencer on Twitter and receive a RT, our payoff is the same: we are earning media, and as a result we garner the impressions that we’ve traditionally used to measure success.  (For more on that, check out this article on vanity metrics vs actionable metrics.)

The great thing about setting engagement as our primary goal in a socially-networked communications landscape from a PR metrics perspective is that – unlike “impressions” – it’s easy to prove: most engagement comes in the form of a click and can easily be monitored by standard social analytics.

2) Determine what Engagement Looks like on Each Channel

Engagement simply means that a consumer, or group of consumers, decided to share or interact with your messaging online.  With regards to traditional journalism, that’s media placement: how many articles or releases were picked up?  The social networks have their own metrics of engagement: a share on Twitter, a “like” or share on Facebook, or a favorite on Instagram, etc.  All of these channels work together, so understanding what engagement looks like per distribution channel is important, even if we’re just going for the traditional media placement.  The social engagement is what creates the message amplification we’re after, and as a result those are crucial PR metrics to track.

<div style="background-color: #c4f4f4; padding: 20px;">Tip: <a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/instagram-analytics-insights-guide">Learn how to access your Instagram analytics and metrics</a>.</div>

3) Measure & Qualify PR Engagement & Reach

How many people took an action on behalf of our brand?  Now that we know what engagement looks like, measuring it is easy with the right PR analytics tools.  A good traditional and social media monitoring tool will identify and quantify that engagement for us, as part of a data-driven approach.  One important delineation to bear in mind is the tracking of social shares - both from both paid and owned channels where possible (i.e. the article was on the homepage of the New York Times, and was then shared to Facebook whereupon it took on a life of its own. It was also on our own Facebook page, which spurred engagement from that audience.  This type of channel-specific analysis will help us both measure and qualify our overall PR engagement.

Now, to answer the age-old communications question: is our message actually being heard?  The qualitative side of measurement is less linear, but still doable:  A good traditional media monitoring tool, in addition to a social listening tool, allows us to set up a variety of searches complete with threshold alerts that can tell us who’s saying what – and pinpointing the locations of these sources.  In this way, we can track whether or not the language and positioning we’re introducing into the market is being adopted.  If it’s not, by listening we’ve identified both what messages are out there, and where we might insert ourselves and/or engage in order to change that.  This makes for a modern communications program cycle that looks like this:

The dialogue marketing cycle starts and ends with listening.

With this in mind, our PR metrics might list a hard number of RTs, and we might then qualify our success by showing a few concrete examples (i.e. screenshots or report snippets). This will prove that  of our message is being organically shared, as other Twitter users endorse it and make it visible to their followers. Similarly, tweets that people favorite become visible to their communities as well. This is a fairly recent development but affects impressions drastically. 

4) Measure and Analyze Reach for PR Success

The reach and impression numbers that our channel partners give us are also an important part of our PR metrics – impressions are, after all, at the top of a purchase funnel, and we want to understand the opportunity there.  This is the PR metric we’re most used to using: in a time of offline communications, it was the best one available that demonstrated the value of media placement.

The power of message amplification via social sharing is that we can get significant impressions from earned media – and those impressions might be made on important influencers.  Today’s media platforms don’t operate in a silo: reporters use blogs and social and bloggers use social media, and social media influencers use journalism and blogs. Or, as we learned from PRSA: paid, earned and owned media service to amplify each other.  With that in mind, measuring our PR and general brand reach, in conjunction with both hard engagement metrics and qualitative messaging analysis, gives us a data-driven and holistic view as to the success of our messaging campaign.

A customer is so much more than just a consumer. They are a vehicle for helping your brand reach new audiences and potential new buyers. A well-thought-out PR campaign with enticing content such as infographics and short-form social posts can help you gain organic media coverage along with syndicated content like a press release. From here, you can use Google Analytics and social listening to hone in on key focus areas and prove and increase in ROI. 

Data-driven marketing is a key foundation of good public relations and an important part of your campaign evaluation and increasing revenue and exposure for your brand. Make sure you have the right tools to understand the impact of your messaging effort and to guide you in your journey towards content marketing mastery. 

Data-Driven PR Metrics in 4 Easy Steps

How can PR dashboards drive your next campaign? Read what Meltwater is learning from our clients on the most effective ways to use PR dashboards, and how one PR manager got out of her analytics rut with a little help from technology. Also, take this opportunity to download our comprehensive ebook on PR and social media KPIs and how to track them on your dashboards and create top-notch ROI reports.

Confession: While media monitoring software was evolving into media intelligence over the last decade, I didn’t as a user. My media monitoring routine remained fairly static since the early aughts: Start the day scanning my inbox for the latest press hits, and occasionally log in to look up a journalist or run a coverage report. But then I joined Meltwater’s team of product experts, leading up global product communications—and had to catch up quickly. I learned I was missing out on the powerful tools, best practices, and advanced technologies now available thanks to media intelligence—starting with my underutilisation of dashboards.

Your dashboards are automated oracles always available to help out with everything from content marketing ideas to competitor intelligence—when they’re done right and designed with intention. (Secondary confession: I initially relied on a default template* and ignored half of the widgets.) Our in-house dashboards guru, Ryan Getchell—who’s interviewed clients from Fortune 50 companies to boutique PR agencies—says as PR pros become more data-driven, they’re increasingly using dashboards to drive their campaign strategies:

“Clients that use dashboards to design data-driven campaign strategies tend to rely on three types of PR dashboards: brand, competitor, and industry trends. Track these three staples to gain a real-time understanding of your brand’s PR ecosystem. The insights you glean may reveal new trends or validate what you already know—but backed by data. Armed with these metrics, you can identify areas to influence, strategize how to move the needle, then measure the effectiveness of those efforts through a campaign dashboard to demonstrate PR ROI.”

Read on for some tips* for setting up these three PR dashboards—based on our clients’ own best practices—and how to translate data gleaned from those dashboards into insights that can drive the direction of your next campaign or PR strategy.

1. Brand Dashboards — How to Optimise Them

If you’re already using a media intelligence platform, you likely have some form of this dashboard already. But what’s key here is keeping it focused on your brand, and making sure the metrics you track can accurately measure your brand’s performance. This will be your go-to dashboard to gain insights into how your brand is performing now and over time, creating a baseline for your reporting. You’ll want this dashboard to map directly to your KPIs, informing daily decisions, as well as your monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

Tip #1: Filter out the noise of competitors and other market data to making sure the metrics you track speak only to your brand’s performance.

Tip #2: Make sure you’re using the right metrics to most accurately measure your brand and how its footprint evolves over time. Depending on your brand’s goals, you may want to include data like publications/social influencers, mentions by geography, or visits to your website (tracked by Google Analytics and integrated into your PR dashboard).

Tip #3: Measure news and social data separately. “Tracking news and social together gives you a holistic view, but oftentimes, the trends within these channels are vastly different,” Ryan says. “Collecting data separately—such as mentions or sentiment – makes it easier to drill in to identify patterns that you might not otherwise recognize when the channels are combined.”

Tip #4: Check daily. Use the content feeds on your brand dashboard as a way to make it part of your routine.

2. Competitor Dashboards — Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

Now that you’re acutely aware of your brand’s performance, apply those same principles (er, metrics) to size up the competition.

Use this dashboard to exclusively benchmark competitors’ brand performance against your own. Identify where your brand and the competition are similar, and spot where you can stand out. Monitor how your competitor is being mentioned or where there’s an opening for your brand to have a louder voice in the conversation.

Tip #1: Just about everything you can know about yourself, you can know about your competitors. And since a good media intelligence tool doesn’t limit you on the number of searches you can track, use this single dashboard as your daily source to keep an eye on all of your competitors.

Tip #2: As Ryan says, “For PR managers, I would recommend checking your brand and competitor dashboards every morning to make sure you’re the first to catch any breaking trends—or every couple of days, depending on the tempo of your industry and news cycle.”

3. Industry Dashboards—Keep the Pulse on the Latest Trends  

Your brand, and those of your competitors, aren’t operating in isolation—take a constant pulse on the greater ecosystem of your industry. Spot market forces that could affect your brand over time: What are the micro- and macro-trends or themes that could impact your brand? Who are the most influential voices leading key conversations, and what kind of keywords or messages are they using?

“Not checking your industry is like flying a plane without checking the weather. Know what elements to expect so you can chart the optimal course,” Ryan says. “Using your industry dashboard in conjunction with brand and competitor dashboards, it’ll be easier to spot areas of opportunity or areas to improve—like geographic performance—to guide your PR strategy.”

Tip #1: Ryan recommends checking this dashboard at least monthly to make sure you’re not missing any key coverage or patterns.

Tip #2: Unlike your competitor dashboard where you’re keeping track of other brands, here you’ll want to keep track of key topics and thought leaders. This dashboard is a great place to find out which themes you’ll want to align yourself to when pitching for coverage and any new movers and shakers whose voices are growing louder—and more influential.

Translating Dashboard Data to Winning Strategies

So you’ve got your PR dashboards set up and you’re armed with analytics that help you understand where your brand is at, how it stacks up against the competition, and where it’s performing in your industry. Now what?

Make the leap from widgets to a data-driven strategy in four broad steps:

Digest your data. Export your dashboard analytics and review with your team—either as a PDF report or a living presentation, like Meltwater’s Shareable Dashboards (which can be shared with anyone, regardless if they have an account.)

Pinpoint opportunities for impact. “SWOT analysis is a simple method that can help with this identification,” Ryan says. “Use your data to guide the mapping.”

Sketch out your strategy. Create a set of tactics that focus on the areas you’ve previously identified for impact.

Design your KPIs. Identify which PR metrics will be the best indicators of whether or not your strategy is working. For instance, most media intelligence providers – including Meltwater—offer a Google Analytics widget to help you connect a news article with the web traffic driven to your company’s site. You can also measure how your messages are gaining traction, such as share of voice or tracking trending themes associated with your brand. Use these custom metrics to create a unique campaign dashboard. (Tip: Check your campaign dashboard daily. Generate regular summaries to detect trends and make adjustments, as needed.)

Want to learn more about setting up PR dashboards, and how to use them for better planning and to measure ROI? Our PR Reporting software can help.

The 3 PR Dashboards Your Comms Strategy Needs

First day jitters are real. New employees frequently experience a mixed bag of emotions when they start a job, ranging from excitement to anxious anticipation. Often, those embarking on a career in public relations, especially those joining an agency, have added challenges, too, as it’s not only important to blend in with your new team, but also form a solid working relationship with clients. So how do you navigate your first day at work as a PR newbie?

Heather Fox is a senior account manager at Catalyst, a division of Endeavor Global Marketing, based in New York City. It’s an award-winning agency with a number of national and global clients in a variety of industries. Fox has been with this agency for over eight years, and has steadily risen through the ranks, from her entry-level internship to her current senior-level position. Today, as a seasoned pro, she enjoys assisting new co-workers as they become acclimated to the agency world, and offers some tips for getting up to speed on the first day of work.

Fox suggests, “This may seem trivial to some, but I always recommend over-dressing on your first day, even if you know the office has a casual dress code. Really think about how you are presenting yourself. It’s the first time you will be making an impression on your new co-workers and you want it to be a positive one.”

Fox points out that it’s essential to be proactive from the very beginning. She says, “Agency environments are often busy and your co-workers may be pulled in a lot of different directions. So, when you arrive at a new office, it’s a good idea to set up 20-minute meetings with as many people as you can. You can even meet co-workers for a quick coffee or lunch where you can ask questions and get to know them a bit. And don’t be shy about reaching out to those outside of your core account team, because meeting people will always help you in the long-run.”

Fox also mentioned that doing some extra research in advance is always beneficial. “You will probably be briefed on the clients, but it’s always good to have a general baseline knowledge about a brand’s recent program or big launch that the agency team has spearheaded.”

Agency life is often synonymous with hectic projects, deadlines and late hours. For someone new to the industry, this may present a learning curve. Fox said, “It’s necessary to come in with an open mind and understanding of what agency life is. Above all, we are here to service our clients. When you start a new job, you should be thinking ‘this is a fresh opportunity for me. When I walk in the door, I’m going to get everything I need to get finished in a timely and efficient manner.’ ”

She added, “Depending on the culture of the agency, you may have opportunities to work from home on occasion or leave early. But don’t assume this is true, especially in the beginning. I’m lucky enough to work at an agency that values work-life balance, and it’s better for everyone.”

Client meetings are also critical for making a first impression. In addition to dressing well, she suggests being friendly and approachable. “Don’t be afraid to share some anecdotes or personal information about your life with your clients once in a while. When you talk about small details, like your family, pets or hobbies, that’s when the relationship goes to a deeper level. And that’s also the key to long-time client relationships,” she said.  

Often, the extremely collaborative nature of an agency is different from a corporate environment, and may be an adjustment to recent college graduates. Fox points out, “In the agency world, your entire day-to-day structure and your success is based on your team. Agencies often have brainstorming sessions and invite anyone to join. I highly recommend attending, showing enthusiasm and offering ideas.”

She added, “After all, we’re all in this together. Collaboration is what agency life is all about.” 

First Day in PR: 6 Essential Tips for a PR Newbie from a Seasoned Pro

When you’re at an event like SXSW, and you’re meeting people who can introduce you to other people, how do you follow through? As PR pros we know that introductions and relationships can make all the difference to the success of a campaign. So, asking for and meeting with a key contact is a skill set that is invaluable, whether you’re a PR pro or an entrepreneur.

One of my favorite things about the startup world is how generous people are about making important introductions. Everyone on the challenging adventure of building a company knows that you can’t do it alone, and there’s always someone out there— another founder, a potential customer, a mentor, an investor—that can help get you through tough times.

Unfortunately, most of us suck at getting or making introductions. It’s not something taught in high school (though it should be), at business school (it really should be), or at your job, but it’s one of the most critical processes to nail down.

Why is this so important? For starters, tell me if any of these scenarios sound familiar:

Someone offers to introduce you to a friend, and you get super excited, but that introduction never comes.

You get an introduction, but the person introducing you mischaracterizes who you are or your goal in connecting.

You email back and forth so many times looking for a right time and place that the meeting never gets scheduled.

When you show up to a meeting, the other person has no idea what’s going on or is uninterested.

Yeah, I’ll raise my hand for all four. When a productive meeting could be the difference between your company having a good or bad week, you want to ensure the introduction is a quality one. And when you’re getting 10 or more introductions a week while fundraising, you really want to make sure you’re handling these as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Here are four important concepts you need to know:

When you ask someone for an introduction, you’re creating more work for them. No matter how happy that person is to make an intro, they’ll appreciate it if you make their life easier.

Once an introducer agrees to an intro, send them an email that describes you/your company and why you’re hoping to meet this new person.

Try to write it in a way that allows the introducer to easily forward your email along. If not, at least include a blurb with all the information below that they can copy and paste into their email.

Most people despise receiving introductions without being asked first. This is a crucial social norm to understand, especially with people as busy as founders, mentors, and investors.

When you send the introducer a forwardable email or blurb, assume they will want to check with the other person if they’re okay with receiving an introduction. When I’m introducing a founder to an investor, I’ll usually send an investor an email like this first:

This double opt-in process can be a double-edged sword, but is usually a net positive. The introduction will likely take more time, and there’s always a chance the person will say no. But if you meet, the person will more likely to be happy and engaged while speaking with you because they’ve given permission first.

Sometimes, the double opt-in process takes time: the introducer may have forgotten to forward along your email, or the person may be slow to respond. Either way, it’s on you to send quick reminders and see how things are going after a few days. If the introducer is happy to make the introduction, they won’t be annoyed to get a friendly nudge here or there to move things along.

When done wrong, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves.

When you finally do receive the glorious introduction, try to respond ASAP! Some simple steps:

B) Thank the introducer and move them to BCC.

C) Reiterate how excited you are to meet (and, if appropriate, what you’re looking to accomplish).

D) Offer 3-5 specific dates and times. If possible, mention how or where the meeting will be conducted (usually either a place to meet or a number to call).

E) Mention that you’re flexible to change time or place if something is more convenient for the other person.

F) Offer to send the calendar invite if/when they confirm.

After giving and taking hundreds of introductions, I’ve found that this is by far the most effective and efficient process. D) is where most people mess up—assuming that the person we’d like to meet is busier than us, we write “please send me some times that work for you.” But being too accommodating, in this case, isn’t a good thing. It’s more work for that person to look at their whole schedule for gaps than it is for them to check availability for particular windows of time that you propose. If they are busy during all the times you suggest, they’ll usually appreciate your specificity and respond with a few available times.

All of this seems minor, but it’s imperative: it will help shorten the number of back-and-forths needed (and increase the probability) of getting a meeting on the calendar that can change everything. And then, don’t forget to follow up.

The Art of Asking for Important Introductions

If there is anything executives want more than customers, it’s publicity. That's why every public relations team needs a solid public relations strategy and tactics that align with the customer journey. During this article, we'll show you 6 proven examples of how to leverage your PR outreach to increase brand awareness and improve your reputation.

Nowadays, public relation teams usually have a set of publications they want to receive coverage in, but here’s the catch: a single media mention isn’t going to have as big of an effect on your PR as you might think. Sure, some people might visit your site off the back of seeing the PR hit, some might even remember your brand name, but this effect will wane, fast.

In the long run, building a PR strategy and focusing on tactics that are centred on chasing media mentions is probably one of the least effective public relations means for small and medium-sized companies. If you’re wondering what your public relations team should do instead, keep on reading our 6 strategies that will help you increase brand awareness beyond press releases.

Strategy 1: Leverage connections with industry influencers

Influencer marketing is a big thing among marketers these days - and rightly so. Customers are more likely to trust a new company if it was recommended by someone they know and respect. Thankfully, it's not just the marketing teams focusing on influencers, public relations teams are noticing the impact.

It's no surprise that influencer marketing tops the list of the most cost-effective customer acquisition channels, especially when its used in combination with social media. According to Tomoson, businesses are making up to $20 per each dollar spent on influencer marketing and 51% of companies admit to seeing better results from influencer marketing than other channels, including public relations.

And here lies your first PR opportunity: aligning yourself with influencers your audience follows and admirers. This is a surefire way to get your company noticed and improve the ROI of your communication plan.

We use this strategy all the time here at SEMrush. We connect and slowly develop deep relationships with influential figures and this later results in coverage and promotion we could have never dreamt of from only using PR. Our word of advice here? Instead of trying to get an influencer to take part in a major promotional campaign, start off with a smaller project.

Strategy 2: Promote your company at important industry events

Industry events are an amazing opportunity to learn something new, keep up with new trends, and get inspired by leading figures. But they also offer a chance to promote your company and boost PR.

Events give you a chance to meet your audience, users, and influencers in person, build connections, and develop relationships you could take advantage of from a PR perpective in the future.

Here are 5 tips how to use events for public relations:

Always create an attendee profile, if an event’s organisers offer that option.


Pick a couple of presentations that relate to your product or brand, research their topics, and prepare questions you could ask during a Q&A session. This will help get you noticed by the influencers and allow you to connect with them later on in the lobby.


Schedule meetings with interesting people prior to the event. Reach out to them and ask for a couple of minutes of their time. Give a reason for a meeting that will be beneficial for them as well and you should have no problems with booking some meetings.


Interview people. Many industry leaders will be happy to elaborate on the topic of their speech and more than willing to do it if their advice will be later published online.


And of course, speak at events. After all, nothing beats speaking as a publicity opportunity.

Bonus: if you don’t have the budget to attend big events (and let’s face, those can be costly), seek out online events you could speak at. These events often have more relaxed rules for whom they invite to participate. Oftentimes, you don’t need to be a big name to book yourself to speak at them.

I’m sure you have heard every possible argument in favour of having a business blog already. You know it could help raise your authority, brand awareness, and generate leads. But there is another reason why you should leverage your company’s blog.

You see, a growing number of journalists review blogs on daily basis to find interesting stories, angles, data and stats. They scout the web, searching for new and up-to-date information to enrich their editorial stories. By publishing newsworthy content, you can turn your blog into a great pipeline directly into interested media outlets. In turn, your brand will be credited, therefore boosting PR ROI.

It's important that PR teams work closely with the marketing department to carefully plan and craft content based on a deep understanding of the target audience’s needs. One of the best tools you can utilise for successful content creation is Google Analytics. And don’t forget to distribute your content through all marketing channels rather than solely thinking of content with a PR hat on! You can read more about content distribution strategies in this article.

Try as you might, you can’t make a journalist cover your brand or product. Gone are the days of wining and dining journalists with PR in mind, in this ever-competitive world you need to provide them with so much value that they will be compelled to do so.

PR value could take the form of offering an expert opinion on industry trends, sharing personal experience, providing proprietary data, or even, converting it into an infographic, if they need visual content to enrich the piece.

Journalists are constantly in search for credible PR sources, and if you engage them with your response, they’ll most likely reference your company in return.

When you think of Kickstarter or Indiegogo, you probably picture new product ideas entrepreneurs need help bring to the market. But crowdfunding social media sites could also help you gain publicity and improve journalist relations. How? By presenting your new product to thousands of potential customers. That’s what startups like Mailpilot or Roost did. They first launched their idea on Kickstarter and then used it to develop massive media coverage off the back of it.

Strategy 6: Submit guest posts to popular websites

I admit, guest posting is one of the oldest tricks in the PR handbook - but it works. And that’s partially because guest blogging is mutually beneficial for both the publication and the company. Here is an article on how to find guest blogging opportunities.

By syndicating your content or guest blogging, you get the opportunity to increase brand awareness while sharing some useful advice with people who potentially could become their users. The publication, on the other hand, gets quality content written from a new perspective, adding something new to their site.

That’s the reason why Entrepreneur.com, Harvard Business Review, Inc.com, Forbes, Fast Company and many others still accept authentic and engaging content from outside contributors. Review their submission guidelines and submit valuable content. In time, you will see your name appearing on the largest sites, building your authority and spreading information on your brand.

Building PR strategy should start with research. In my previous post, 5 Ways to Turbocharge PR with Media Monitoring, we explored how monitoring tools enable brand, competitive and industry research – this is a great place to start.

“When developing a PR strategy, I use competitive insights to ensure my team doesn’t replicate a similar idea, creates unique messaging and finds specific audiences that aren’t currently being targeted,” adds Tanya Rynders, PR consultant. “Keeping up with media outlets that typically write about your brand or product will help you stay on top of current discussions and trends in real time.”

As you approach a new PR campaign use your monitoring tools to understand the micro and macro media landscape related to your pitch. On the macro level, monitoring tools will help you to understand your overall brand perception, your competition, industry and customer. On a micro level, you’ll want to use your tools to research press and social media discussions about products or services similar to those you’re pitching. You need to know everything possible about the media environment you’re entering before you pick up a phone or send a single email pitch.

Strategy 8: Clearly Define Your Campaign Goal

Too often we pitch for the sake of pitching; this is not strategic. Perhaps this is because our boss’ demanded “a press release each week” or perhaps we just tried to keep an active pace, but we all know it’s useless to pitch without a clearly defined goal. All PR campaigns need a clear goal and answering these questions will help you put one together without too much pain:

What message(s) do you want to deliver to that customer?

With the answers to these questions you’ll be able to develop a clear, one sentence campaign goal, which will lead your messaging and outreach strategy. If you know why you’re pitching and what you are trying to achieve, the next steps to completing your PR strategy will be that much easier.

Strategy 9: Hone Pitch Messaging Based on Research

By now you’ve done your research in order to better understand your customer, competition and industry environment and you’ve set a clear goal. Those two steps set you up for shaping your message.

Using a combination of your research and goal begin writing pitch messaging that will feel newsworthy to your target journalists, resonate with your customer and match your business objectives.

Youngstrom sums up the correlation between research and messaging nicely; “At the end of the day, great insights provide opportunities to tell unique stories that resonate with target audiences.”

A well-crafted pitch should be concise and easily digestible.  It should move your customer towards action and, as Youngstom points out, it should resonate. Once you have a first draft spend time trying to poke holes in it and share it with a colleague or two for feedback. If needed, edit, and edit some more.  By using your research and being thoughtful you’ll move on to step four with solid pitch messaging.

Strategy 10: Identify and Understand Media Targets

With your pitch messaging completed its time to decide on a distribution channel and find the journalists that will help you to reach your customer.

Determining distribution is largely based on the messaging you’ve developed. The question you need to ask is whether your message is best suited for a broadcast approach (press release) or more personal approach (individual pitching).  Does your message have mass appeal or will it get better pick up if you pitch to a more narrow, targeted list of journalists? For example, if you represent a tech firm announcing a merger with another firm you have a mass-appeal message in which case a press release may be best.  If you are the same firm announcing an upgrade to a current product your message has a more narrow appeal in which case you should focus on select journalists and influencers.

You’ll want to build your media list based on the subjects journalists in your niche are already writing about.  With the right tools it should take minutes to determine which journalists have covered your competition, industry and subject matter regardless of beat. Combine that list with journalists with whom you’ve built relationships and you’re ready to go!

And as a conclusion, I would like to share some practical advice. Track who is mentioning your brand using a media intelligence tool so you can build relationships with journalists that already know who you are. It's also wise for public relations teams to keep an eye on competitor’s PR activities so you can poach journalists who are interested in what you have to say too. Competitive intelligence can also help public relations teams achieve better ideas by learning about their successful content from industry peers and then utilise them (or something similar) for their own PR campaigns.

This article was written by Anna Lebedeva from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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