PR is an art that can’t be learnt overnight

Practice makes a man perfect. The statement applies to the PR industry as well. PR is an art, which can’t be developed overnight. It takes years of practice to stand unique in the PR industry. However, the intriguing question is: how many PR agencies or organizations have such art?

The PR scene has improved with time. Especially, with the advent of digital media and platforms, the PR landscape has seen a tremendous change over the years. The digital innovations have given power to many companies and agencies that later started rendering PR services. Their offerings were earlier restricted to a single domain like advertising, marketing or publishing, but it is in the recent years that they have come up with their PR services along with what they were already providing.

Many agencies in India just followed suit and added a PR arm to their organization with no relevant research. Hence, many such players are failing, and ultimately they have no choice left but to wind up due to heavy losses. Technology is the biggest game-changer in the present digital scenario, but it can land you into massive losses if not taken care of. Just adopting it won’t cut the deal. Companies should train their employees and hone their soft skills to make the optimum utilization of new technologies, and thus, deliver quality.

However, before adding a new PR variant to their existing business, agencies should know the basics of the industry. For instance, the difference between public relations and media relations; while media relations is a subset of PR, public relations is to communicate with your constituents through various formal, informal and creative ways. PR agencies should not limit their strategies to media relations but create a comprehensive plan with great content backed by storytelling.

For PR agencies, it is critical to respect their employees because the reputation of the agency relies on how its employees brand themselves in public. That will decide the volume of the audience who wish to trust and connect with your brand. Hence personal branding plays a vital role in modern PR. The content of the PR agency should reflect their thought leadership; this will help strengthen the bond between audiences and your agency.

Content will always remain the king; therefore it’s important to focus on the quality of content before making deliveries. Journalists and editors always keep an eye on the quality of content and immediately reject the articles or releases if they aren’t well drafted or miss the crux. So, these are some PR hacks that every company should look into before turning into a PR agency or company.