Traditionally, businesses go to Media & PR agencies to manage press relations, so that they get the coverage that they seek for their products/brands. Most of these agencies maintain good relationships with local and relevant media and have their own specialties in terms of industries that they are comfortable to cover (based on the media and trade publications that they have relationships with)
Over the last few years though, a lot has changed because the way in which businesses seek publicity or manage press relations is a lot more than just media and press publicity. They want coverage across social media and want to exponentially increase their reach. They want to increasingly leverage digital marketing, so that they can control their marketing spends. As you know, budgets needed to manage press relations can be quite a bit.
With these widespread changes, Media & PR agencies have had to rejuggle their services portfolio to cater to the changing demands of the businesses that they serve. But one of the things that continues to be the main differentiator is the quality of content that they generate, whether it is self- generated through an editorial board, or is curated based on crowd sourced content from a panel of experts.
While they build content, they have to take care of two things now & I will explain why
- Strength of the topic and relevance, shelf life
- Trending ability of the content
Speaking about the strength of the topic & relevance, it is extremely important to talk about what the target audience wants to hear. If you get it right, then you will get the necessary eyeballs and visibility. The challenge always remains, How do you go about identify content that is trending and is relevant? (Read more about how one can go about doing content research and identifying the right and trending content ideas)
The trending ability is also important because of the viral nature of social media. If your content is available in digital form, then it can be promoted in a variety of ways on several social forums. 6 steps to an effective social media strategy If the topic is trending and relevant, you will also be able to benefit from the viral nature of social media and exponentially increase the reach for your content. Every piece of content that is generated can be promoted much better if we can represent it visually. Nowadays most social forums also see a lot of image posts, which communicate much more than just text posts. (Read more about how you can manage visual promotion campaigns on social)
Clearly, the demands on the PR & Media agencies will increase significantly. The ones that will get both the content and the promotion mechanisms right will see increased following and business. The way they manage press relations will be more of a hygiene factor.
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