Social PR combines traditional PR methods with social media marketing. Social PR helps companies and individuals build their brand and develop thought leadership; engage customers, influencers, and other key stakeholders; and generate leads and ultimately sales.
Here are the 3 elements of Social PR:
1. Media Relations: Media relations includes traditional PR tactics such as press releases, pitching the media, and obtaining placements in business and trade publications.
Building relationships with reporters, analysts, and bloggers are key here. While media relations can be challenging, a feature or mention of your company can be an extremely effective way to increase awareness about your products and services.
But remember, media placements are only valuable insofar as they reach your target audience, so make sure you are pitching publications that your customers, influencers, and other stakeholders actually follow.
2. Self-Initiated Content: Self-initiated content allows you to talk directly to your audience including customers, influencers, and other key stakeholders.
Social media channels like LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, along with blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger, allow you to publish your own content. Tools like Hootsuite and Google Analytics enable you to share content to many social networks at once, engage your audience, and measure social media metrics & ROI.
The key here is that self-initiated content reaches your audience directly rather than through the media. As in media relations, make sure to think about where your audience spends time online and only engage in social media channels where your target audience can be found.
Make sure to think about where your audience spends time online and only engage in social media channels where your target audience can be found.
3. Thought Leadership: Developing thought leadership means becoming an authority on a given topic by answering the questions that are most pressing to your target audience.
Ways to develop thought leadership include participating in speaking engagements, leading a workshop, and webinars. In both media relations and self-initiated content, thought leadership is an important element of building relationships with your audience.
In an age where it is increasingly hard to stand out, Social PR is an essential part of any company’s marketing mix. In 2015, how are you going to leverage Social PR to achieve your business objectives?
About Amy Smith
Amy Smith is a strategic and tactical marketing consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Smith provides digital marketing, social media, and public relations services to tech, startups, and professional services companies. She is the co-founder of Project Gado, a social enterprise working to digitize and share the world's visual history. She also serves as the Marketing & PR Director for Women In Consulting (WIC), and was previously WIC's Social Media Director. Learn more by visiting her website at www.amysmithconsulting.com.
