The Only 5 Public Relations Hacks Every Ambitious Startup Founder Needs to Know -

Do you ever wonder why some people just seem to always be constantly hitting success? They’re always the one in the news, receiving awards, or landing massive contracts, so much it looks like they’re hacking the system. Yes, they are, and no matter the industry you’re in, even in public relations, certain hacks can ensure your success.

Key Takeaways

Public relations is the process of establishing strategic communication relationships across different media channels to promote the positive perception of a company.
PR strategies also can be useful in crisis management situations because they allow organizations to respond to a negative situation and try to develop a possible outcome from it.
A good strategy can help companies increase their reputation if they overcome a negative situation.
PR’s value lies in its ability to shape perceptions, manage reputations, and cultivate a community presence that resonates with your client base.
Whether you are trying to get publicity online, in print, on TV, or on a podcast, several public relations hacks can help you get publicity and grow your business.

Public Relations: Definition

Public relations is the process of establishing strategic communication relationships across different media channels to promote the positive perception of your company with the relevant audiences and get additional coverage from those channels.

An established PR strategy defines every way in which a company positions itself on the global stage and communicates with all the stakeholders. These are your current and prospective customers, journalists, influencers, and anyone else who’s important to your organization. These help a company organize its public relations efforts to attract its target audience and identify ways to reach its goals during the planning stage. They’re similar to marketing strategies because the primary goal is to spread brand awareness.

Businesses often rely on outlets, such as media sources, blogs, social media or podcasts, to help them deliver messages for these strategies to a wider audience. PR professionals group these into three categories, which are:

Owned media: This includes any outlets a company owns and operates, such as a blog, social media sites, or video channels.
Earned media: This refers to any content a third party creates about a brand or company without being paid to do so, such as online reviews, social media posts, or word-of-mouth recommendations
Paid media: This is any type of media a company pays for to increase its reach or exposure, such as advertisements, sponsored posts, or influencer content.

Public relations strategies also can be useful in crisis management situations because they allow organizations to respond to a negative situation and try to develop a possible outcome from it. A good strategy can help companies increase their reputation if they overcome a negative situation.

Common PR Campaign Objectives

Public relations is a powerful way to connect with your audience and creating the ideal campaign and implementing it properly, has never been more important.

The goal of a public relations campaign is to create a media narrative and control the spread of information about your business to attract customers. It can also be used as a tactic to generate awareness about a specific event or business venture. Most times, marketing and advertising campaigns are focused on driving sales, whereas public relations teams usually have set different PR KPIs:

Attract media attention
Generate awareness
Inform the public about the latest company news
Enhance your brand reputation
Build stakeholder relations

Many PR experts choose to use the SMART method as a template when coming up with the goals for their PR campaign:

Specific: What is the desired outcome?
Measurable: How will success be measured?
Achievable: How will the campaign achieve its goals considering outside influences?
Realistic: Is your campaign goal realistic for the bandwidth of your campaign?
Time-based: How long do you have to meet these goals?

Elements of PR

Public relations teams serve many different purposes and there are various types of PR activities, each addressing its own specific goals. These are the checkpoints for your public relations roadmap, the most important elements of the basic PR plan you need to keep in mind while you’re trying to figure out how to do digital PR.

#1. Media Relations

Chances are, this is exactly what you’re thinking about when hearing the term “public relations”. And yet, media relations management is just one of the main stepping stones on your way toward a proper PR strategy.

Here, your main goal is to build positive relations with bloggers, journalists, and influencers to get yourself media coverage for free (or close enough to it). It’s always good to have someone who speaks to large audiences on your behalf, and that’s exactly what media relations are all about.

In the digital era, establishing and maintaining media relations for PR purposes mainly involves writing press releases and other communications, pitching the media, organizing and participating in different interviews, attending special events, etc.

#2. Employee Relations

When you’re learning how to do digital PR, it’s easy to fall into the novice error and focus on the clients and the clients alone. In reality, public relations are much more complicated than that. For starters, you need to make sure that your PR plan never omits your own employees, both current and potential ones.

Think of it as internal PR.

First of all, your very own staff might be the strongest team of brand ambassadors you’ll ever need. At the same time, an unhappy employee is very likely to spread the harshest criticism. That’s why companies must invest in employer branding and internal PR & communications to ensure your team members feel appreciated, heard, and respected.

#3. Crisis Management

Life happens, and that means unforeseen problems will show up in your office one day. When a crisis hits and things are moving at the speed of the internet, managing and, if needed, correcting the impressions that are created is hard.

That’s when you need a good PR specialist right there in the eye of the storm ready to back your business up with some bulletproof crisis management techniques, contacts to help get your message out in a hurry, and the ability to steer the conversation in the direction you want.

While there’s no way to be prepared for everything that gets thrown at you, the point is that your PR team is appointed as the go-to leaders in dealing with managing a crisis. When the problem hits and your reputation is on the line, there’s no time for meetings to decide who’s going to be in charge of your response — your PR should be ready to go to work in difficult circumstances at a moment’s notice.

#4. Marketing & Communications

It’s pretty easy to forget about other important forms of communication while you’re searching for the most effective ways to do digital PR, like traditional marketing. Chances are, your business is already engaged in numerous marketing campaigns, so it’s your job to make sure those are well-managed as well.

When talking about public relations, a particularly essential aspect of marketing is social media. In a way, this is the easiest way for you to talk directly to all the stakeholders. So make sure to apply each of the basic PR plan principles discussed above to your SM strategy as well. Reply to comments and reviews (especially the negative ones), engage in online social movements and challenges, and collaborate with other brands from your area to improve community relations.

Also, don’t be afraid to try new things!

Every touchpoint where your brand gets a chance for exposure is another opportunity to shape opinions on what you’re all about. But most importantly, make sure your marketing and PR teams are on the same page. Pulling in opposite directions will get you nowhere.

#5. Community Management

Another important audience to keep in mind to help you do PR like a pro is your local community. After all, if you own an offline business, you’d most probably like to have a community spirit around it. That’s exactly what this type of PR is all about.

With community management, you ensure to communicate where your business stands on some of the crucial local issues, how it is perceived by the neighbors, and whether it makes a social commitment or not. In the long run, investing in positive community relations can provide you with new loyal brand ambassadors, a strong boost in ethical reputation for your company, more recruits in the future, and more.

Here, it’s not enough to say what your company’s behind – you need to really show it. Make sure you participate in local events sharing your expertise and time or at least donating some profits towards a worthy cause.

Highlight your good deeds online (having ongoing relations with the media from the previous point wouldn’t hurt here as well). Organize community events, and don’t be afraid to stand up for your ideas.

Public Relations Hacks To Help Your Brand’s Communication

Public relations, in its simplest form, is about storytelling and relationship-building. It’s the art of communicating your brand’s narrative to the right people at the right time, creating a rapport with your audience. For you, as a real estate agent, it’s a pathway to position yourself as the local authority in your market and the go-to agent in your community.

The true value of PR lies in its ability to create credibility and trust with your target audience. Unlike paid advertising, PR offers a third-party endorsement that can be far more powerful in attracting and engaging potential clients.

Think of PR as your personal megaphone, not merely to amplify your voice but to fine-tune the message reaching your audience. Its value lies in its ability to shape perceptions, manage reputations, and cultivate a community presence that resonates with your client base.

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Public Relations Hacks For You

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Extra Public Relations Hacks To Help Grow Your Business

For many business owners, PR is still an area that is daunting to implement. However, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you can find ways to increase your brand awareness without having to overthink too much on the “how” part.

Whether you are trying to get publicity online, in print, on TV, or on a podcast, here are five public relations hacks that can help you get publicity and grow your business:

#1. Maintain your reputation

It is no secret that reputation is one of the most important assets a business can have. Especially when it comes to publicity, you and your business’s reputation can make or break your plans to ensure your business grows successfully.

Ideally, ironing out any kinks in your character is important before reaching out to the public. Although a good reputation is not the be-all and end-all of publicity, it is a great way to maintain your standpoint and perception of what you believe in while often boosting your profile.

Positioning your thought leaders within your organization as experts in your industry is key. Ultimately, there are always key stakeholders behind every company, and it’s important to always think about reputation management and having a PR crisis management plan in place for when things go awry.

#2. Create PR stunts

With lockdowns now hopefully a thing of the past, it is time to put your brand on the map once more and start facilitating PR stunts. With the landscape changing post-Covid, you no longer have to do a physical event to garner press.

Creating a PR stunt strategically could involve a limited-edition product release or price offer to help you grab headlines. Make sure your angle is newsworthy though and doesn’t come across as advertising, as you’ll have no chance of your stunt getting picked up. Handing out free samples at train stations to get on the news doesn’t work either, so don’t even think about it.

When it comes to physical events, make sure you have the correct council approvals. Otherwise, your stunt could be costing you more than what you may have budgeted for.

#3. Understand how to network

Networking has always been an essential part of working toward success for entrepreneurs, and when it comes to public relations, networking is as effective as other hacks you can come across.

Just as you would want to network with people who you think might be helpful to building your brand, your PR strategy should incorporate a level of interaction with key journalists within your field. Have a list of media contacts to whom you can reach out to on hand when you need to pitch a story. Start off with a few names and build it from there.

Press are constantly looking for stories to tell, and if you bring them something interesting to talk about, chances are you might just be the right story they’re looking for.

However, it’s not just the media you should be aiming to successfully connect with. Influencers can be another area to have on your radar when it comes to networking. A positive post from an influencer on your product or service could do wonders for your company, and it also provides a level of credibility and content that you can share across your social media channels.

#4. Tell an effective story

A business with a great public relations strategy knows how important it is to have a good story to tell. Every founder has their own tale, which you should own. This will help set you apart from your competitors and also help you position yourself in the marketplace.

Your story should be relatable while still being able to move your audience, ultimately allowing them to keep talking about it. While not everyone has a rags-to-riches narrative, mapping out your story in a way that can be engaging and newsworthy is crucial and will form the foundation of your public relations strategy.

#5. Don’t delay

Companies can have the best PR plan in place and news angles finalized but fail to launch their campaign in time. Or worse still, they are pushing their CEO or founder out to the media but when journalists contact them for a response or to be involved in a story, their email gets lost in the shuffle and isn’t responded to promptly. Press work on a quick news cycle and you have to be responsive.

As they say, “the early bird gets the worm,” and it’s no different when it comes to publicity. Make sure you don’t hold off replying to a journalist or putting forward your pitch or I can guarantee that your competitor will beat you to it.

What LampHills Will Do For You

While all public relations efforts are dedicated to creating and supporting the positive image of your company, there are many additional objectives you can pursue with a well-developed PR strategy.

Among all the benefits a good PR plan can bring to your business, there are certain key functions of public relations you need to be aware of. In particular, a strong public relations strategy should help you to:

Learn and react to a particular audience’s opinion about your brand
Actively implement strategies that improve your brand image
Seek and maintain positive relationships with investors, journalists, clients, etc.
Manage your online presence and the appearance of your business
Promote your company across various media channels
Mitigate the impact of a crisis on your brand’s reputation

Founded on the principles of transparency, creativity, and strategic insight, LampHills is your go-to if you’re seeking to enhance your public image and media relations. Armed with a team of seasoned experts, they are committed to guiding you through every step of your PR journey. They will ensure that your message not only reaches but also positively impacts your target audience.

LampHills reshapes reputations and builds lasting legacies. And with a blend of strategic expertise and creativity, they create compelling narratives that elevate your brand and leave a lasting impact. This PR agency prides itself on its unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional results while ensuring a collaborative environment that allows ideas to flourish and your reputation and legacy to thrive. We are just a click away.

Public Relations Hacks: In Conclusion

PR can be challenging to have in practice, especially when you have no foundation for how to actually do it or don’t have an expert on board to help. With the public relations hacks listed above, you can set yourself up for success on the publicity front.

The Only 5 Public Relations Hacks Every Ambitious Startup Founder Needs to Know

Key Takeaways

Public Relations: Definition

Common PR Campaign Objectives