10 Newborn PR Tactics
Last week I realized that this is my 10th year in PR. This was a shocking realization. The first thing I thought was that I’m getting old.
As I got over that thought, I started pondering all of the ways that PR has changed since I started in the industry. This pondering led to my post last week, 10 Dead or Dying PR Tactics, about common PR tactics we practiced 10 years ago that aren’t practiced anymore. I decided to write this sequel on common tactics practiced today that weren’t even thought of 10 years ago. If the tactics I wrote about last week are dinosaurs, these are newborns!
Please add your own suggestions in comments!
10 Newborn PR Tactics
10) Reputation Monitoring: I understand this isn’t an entirely new tactic, but who could have imagined the WAY we’re monitoring reputations today?
10 Years Ago: In existence, but in a different form
9) Corporate Web Videos:10 years ago we sent out Beta tapes or booked satellite time to deliver client video and video news releases to journalists. Today, we create YouTube channels and make our video clips available for download in HD format from corporate websites.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, but corporate video was available in a different form
8) Corporate Podcasting: As mentioned above, the Internet has simply changed the way we deliver our content. 10 years ago, I was known as one of the early practitioners of the simple nationwide Audio News Release (ANRs … also called Radio News Releases or RNRs). I recorded interviews with clients through the phone, cut the audio into soundbites using a simple digital editor, and made those soundbites available through a voicemail line. The audio quality was so-so due to the layers of telephone sound. Today, you can record high quality sound in your office and easily make it available via the web to whoever wants it. Much more efficient than a voicemail line!
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, but corporate audio was available in a different form
7) Viral Marketing: Who doesn’t want their company or client content to go viral? Getting an article, blog post, web video or whatever to spread on its own through social media sites or email is a dream! 10 years ago it WAS in existence. It was called “word of mouth” advertising, and it’s been around since we’ve been able to talk. The web got involved later, and changed it forever. Per Wikipedia, the term was coined in the late 1990s and was used to describe Hotmail’s practice of appending advertisements to the end of free email accounts. The tactic wasn’t, to my knowledge, used by any significant number of PR pros until much, much later.
10 Years Ago: Gestating
6) Corporate Blogging: For years, we’ve wanted reporters and influencers to know our executives personally. Ten years ago, we took those bosses or clients on meet-and-greet tours with reporters. That’s still a valid strategy, if you can find reporters who have time for it. Another way to achieve this goal is to launch an executive blog. That’s just one of the myriad of uses for corporate blogging. Others include link building and SEO, news release distribution, and as a home for podcasts and web videos. Per Wikipedia, the term “weblog” was coined in 1997, and was first shortened to “blog” in 1999. Corporate blogs really didn’t start to explode until a few years ago.
10 Years Ago: Gestating
5) Blogger Relations: Once there were enough bloggers out there writing about enough topics, and enough people were reading them, we PR people started to realize that … OMG, WE NEED TO PITCH BLOGGERS! From what I can see, there’s not much rejoicing going on among bloggers about that realization.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent
4) Web Design: Sure … websites existed in 1999. I started my first web business in 1998, and I certainly wasn’t the first one. However, I agree with Sara Evans’ recent blog post that today’s PR pros need to have at least a basic knowledge of HTML code. Optimizing and even simply improving the look of our postings, whether they’re on a blog, Facebook, or on a news release distribution site, is part of our job now.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, at least as a PR tool
3) SEO PR, or PR for Search Engine Optimization: Keyword optimization has been around as long as the Yellow Pages. Ever wonder why company names like AAA Auto Repair were chosen? Yup … it was so they’d be at the front of the book. SEO, meanwhile, came into being in the mid-1990s, as businesses tried to get to the top of Excite, Yahoo, and Lycos. Using tactics like online news release distribution and keyword optimization of news releases, PR pros got into the act a handful of years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent
2) Social Media News Releases: There’s still a lot of discussion going on about whether this is the best format for a release. I’m on the side that believes the old narrative format can still be used, while at the same time using some of the elements of a social media release. Essentially, when I write a formal news release (something I’m doing less and less) I use a hybrid, which you can check on on my news release page. However, whether you’re a practitioner of the social media release or not, I think we can all agree that this was not a tactic we were using 10 years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent
1) Social Media … anything: You can’t get away from the phrase “social media” these days. Hard to believe it didn’t exist in any significant form 10 years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent
Honorary Mention:
Online News Release Distribution: I left this out because it’s a tool for SEO PR, but it can be used for non-SEO purposes as well. PR Newswire has been posting its releases online for a while, but it wasn’t until the RSS feed gained wide use a few years ago that those releases could easily spread around the Internet … which is at least half of the point of posting an online news release!
Note: I’m sure there are some PR pros out there who were using some of these tactics 10 years ago. If you have, then kudos to you … you were ahead of the curve!
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Steve,
Great observations. It will be interesting to see even a year from now how many of these 10 become “no-brainer” tactics and how many of them fall by the wayside.
The interesting thing is how much things change in a relatively short period of time.
Jon
How appropriate that Jon is the first commenter … since he hired me for my first PR job!
I agree with you. I’m curious about the tactics we’ll be using in 5-10 years that we haven’t even considered right now. Here’s an idea: Using a holographic projection of yourself to easily do “in person” media (blogger?) meet-and-greets without actually having to leave your office!!!
I read this because it popped up on my Facebook page. And silly or not, the cartoon picture of the baby caught my eye so I read on. Looking forward to last week’s entry as soon as I get back to a reporter…yes, that’s a tactic we better keep doing!
Steve,
Good list. I may quibble about your designation of online news distribution vs. SEO PR designations, but hey, they’re on the list, and that’s the key.
I too am curious about how many of these tactics are currently being utilized by PR firms. It seems many are still entrenched in PR 1.0.
And obviously, the key is weaving these tactics, if they are used into an overall strategy that makes sense and delivers results.
Marc
Thanks for the comment, Marc. I’m curious — what’s your quibble?
Firstly, congrats on your 10th year of PR. Isn’t it crazy how the world turns out to be? If only we all knew there’s gonna be a drastic rise on the social media, blogging, SEO.. 10 years ago. Just imagine, what would be in-stored for us in the next 10th?
@wchingya
-SocialMedia@Blogging
Another great post! I really think you should start a networking group. I agree with all. In recent years most of us have realized we are working in the Google ecosystem where everything we do has to be search optimized. Now we all have to be on top of twitter, fb and other social networking sites and understand how to leverage those channels help our clients reach influencers and even end-users.
[...] How has PR changed over the last 10 years? Social Media PR Blog takes a stab at a top ten list The way PR professionals conduct their business has changed drastically over the last 10 years. Video, corporate blogs and SEO were all practically non-existent at the end of the last century. [...]
Great insight here! I feel that WOM is one of the most effective ways to promote (and its my favorite). The social media network allows for WOM to spread even faster! I just met this woman who used to be a big time editor in New York, and made a career change to blogging 5 years ago. Back then, people thought she was crazy… now she is rising above. Its fascinating how things change. Thanks for a great article!
[...] but being aware of it and using it to your advantage is a very important tactic. I recently read a blog on how PR tactics have changed in the past 10 years, newborn tactics. The author of the blog [...]
[...] with publics but also how to create actions to influence these publics. I found one blog by Steve Mullen which lists his idea of 10 PR tactics used today that were not necessarily in use 10 years ago. [...]