The world of PR and marketing is continuously evolving. Sometimes, it is hard to keep up with the seemingly constant change of trends, social media platforms, and influencers.
What is more manageable is to focus on what not to do. Here are five PR tactics that PR professionals should leave in the past.
Inconsistent posting numbers
Posting too much or too little is two ways for the general public to lose interest in a brand or company. They create a schedule of what content to post and when is a simple way to build a solid and consistent posting plan. Programs like Hootsuite and Crowdfire are easy ways to schedule posts in advance. Be careful to think about what the posts are about, which leads to the next lousy tactic.
Posting content that is not newsworthy
Not all news about what a brand or company is doing is newsworthy. A successful PR campaign and strategy aims to raise awareness and interest around a specific brand or product. Ten consecutive posts with blatant self-promotion are not interesting for media outlets or the general consumer public.
Being creative is key in PR and marketing. Whether it is evergreen or time-sensitive, content posted on social media needs to be engaging and exciting.
Ignoring consumers who interact on social media
Engagement is a vital tool in gaining new customers and retaining consumer and media interest. Only posting announcements and not replying to or reposting content makes the brand seem impersonal. Social media is an excellent tool for marketing and PR because it creates easy access to the consumer market. Listening to public feedback, tracking engagement and mentions, and using this data in future campaigns or posts will keep customers interested.
Using the same content across all media channels does not work and looks sloppy
Different platforms require different formats. When managing content for the same brand across various social media platforms, look at the interactions with past posts that did well.
Who liked the posts? Who commented?
The age demographic on Facebook vs Tik Tok will be different, so posts on those platforms need to be another formatting wise and need to be created with a specific demographic in mind.
Adults in their 40s and 50s have different priorities than teenagers. Posting the same content verbatim across all social media channels, even if each post is formatted correctly for the social media channel it will be posted on, can make a brand or company look stagnant.
Sending email blasts to as many media outlets as possible
A great way to never get media coverage is to blast a media outlet or journalist with countless press releases, cold calls and email blasts.
Journalists get hundreds of press releases daily. Contacting media outlets with a press release and assuming that they will write a story about it is unrealistic.
Adding personal details related to each media outlet is more work than sending out a group email. However, pitching specifically for the angle a media company is likely to go with results in more results than an impersonal email that starts with “Dear Journalist.”
