5 Revolutionary PR Trends for 2018

Public Relations if looked in simplest terms, refers to an art of convincing the target audience about the ambitions, goals, worth and present market position of a business or organization. But this simple definition will go through a complete transformation in 2018 with the objectives of PR taking an interesting turn, social media changing or in a way threatening the fundamentals and the push provided by the AI and automation tools.

Here are the 5 major trends that will revolutionize the Indian Public Relations industry and about which the advertisers, publishers and digital-age business heads and entrepreneurs need to be aware of:

As the year 2018 begins, let’s go through the major shifts and trends that will revolutionize the Indian Public Relations industry this year:  

1. Emphasis will be laid more on crisis management:

With many major crisis issues being tackled by the PR firms in the past, there are more such lined up for the year 2018. As social media gains more importance in the PR world, it will be more of managing the credibility and perception crisis for the brands than of fact-sharing.  To be relevant and make an impact in the industry PR firms need to invest more in technologies like Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language. This will help the brands gain more of social listening and predictive analytics to better identify and tackle the potential crisis for their clients.

2. Association of Influencers and Brand Ambassadors will be questioned: Only the association of a celebrity face won’t be enough to make the consumers get into the brand’s influence as it is now more about authenticity. With lines getting blurred between paid and earned media, the issue that has gained prominence the most is the credibility and trust present in the communication. This in turn is making the PR companies realize the importance of identifying and working with ‘real’ influencers and authentic voices. Finally, it is not only strengthening the flow of information but also controlling the truth, trust and transparency in it.

3. Increasing connectivity will increase the regional language communication: The KMPG and Google research works have found that India has around 430 million users with more than 30% of these coming from the rural areas. The numbers will increase exponentially with more and more internet service providers giving cheaper and affordable internet facility. The studies have also revealed that more than 70% of the Indians consider content in local language more authentic and reliable than the one conveyed through English medium. The regional language is sure to increase more as mobile players are coming up with cheaper smartphones supporting the regional languages.  To make the presence felt and take the lead in the market, PR agencies need to create authentic, engaging, high-quality, and real-time content in multiple languages catering to this rapidly growing digital population.

4. It will be more of strategic planning than reputation management:  With the changing media landscape changes the news consumption habits and the role of different news mediums. It’s not just the brand reputation management that will be of major importance but the role of PR agencies will go much beyond and will involve being strategic advisors to brands too.  While Big Data, AI, and other such tools will continue to be in limelight, how this data gets converted in to stakeholder’s engagement will also be of major importance in the 2018 PR campaigns. This means that the PR teams have to focus more on crafting and implementing creative strategies and programs to lead the client’s brand to new heights of success.

5. Inclination towards online will rise, still print will remain critical:   2017 statistics reveal that the media consumption habits of the country people have changed drastically with most of the internet using Indian population spending more than 34% of their overall time on social networking sites. As the online media is gaining attention, 2018 is a year where PR companies have to rely on creating more of concise yet newsy and user- friendly content for different online and social media platforms.  In spite of the digital boom, Print media is one such platform that is constantly growing and referred as the most credible source of information. So, while focusing on the digital at its core of the brand communication strategy, PR firms still face the challenge of getting prominent news coverage for the client in the best sorted print publications.  

Technologies that can stimulate PR functions

Public Relation is basically a management function that maintains and establishes a relation between the organization and the audience. Public Relation helps to build a strong and vital relationship between the target audience and the brand/organization. This not only helps a brand to maintain good public reputation but also reach the attention of the target audience. Once a relationship is maintained with the target audience it is important to keep the process going on to keep it on the high level. There are numerous PR firms which deliver what they promise to their clients to keep their brands on top. If one loses touch or contact with the target audience people often switch to other brand/organization. So, leading PR agencies could help a brand to reach the attention of the potential audience and influence their opinion and decisions. There are many relations between technologies and public relations. Public relations need a communication for customers inside and outside the organization. Also, there are different technologies that can stimulate PR functions; here we have accumulated few.

·         SEO is more than just web addicts: Public relations practitioners must understand some SEO basics in order to be successful. Search Engine Optimization allows a brand’s content to be found more easily by people who are looking for it.

·         Technology gives us a tool to build a deeper relationship with influencer also: With social media, you one can connect with influencers using less intrusive means than ever before. This builds a mutually-beneficial relationship between the audience and brand both.  This results in better outreach and better results later in the near future.

·         Technology fuels better responses: When one’s own tweet sets the online world on fire, technology makes it easier for any small issue to turn into a big crisis. This can be beneficial for one’s brand or vice versa. There are millions of examples everywhere of issues that turned into big crises or issues that turned out to be big news for a brand just via a tweet or post on social media.

·         Social media supports and enhances PR: When it comes to PR, always keep in mind that journalists rely on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to research and source stories. When a brand shares their story socially, they want to reach the maximum audience. Sharing a story or post gives PR a chance to raise the topic and make a story while highlighting the brand/organization.

Technology is in everything that we do. Technology not only makes our job easier but also offers new and exciting ways to connect with influencers and consumers all around. There are different techniques and tools which are included in PR services for the same.

What brings success to Digital PR Campaign?

It was in the early 21st century that there came a boom in the fast-growing population of internet users due to the several technological innovations that made the online access easier and cheaper. Today, more than half of the world’s population is online. While influencing the other industries, digital connectivity also opened up the world of digital PR- which consists the combination of both traditional PR practices and online marketing strategies. If done in a proper manner, digital PR brings exposure, accentuates brand awareness and online visibility.
Whereas clips (e.g. news items, feature stories, etc.) are the metrics of traditional PR, digital PR uses analytics and media monitoring tools to measure campaign success.
Traditional and digital PR differs in strategies employed, but they both aim for the same objective—to get the word out about a brand.
Whereas news items, feature stories, etc. are the traditional PR tools, digital PR uses analytics and media monitoring tools to measure PR campaign success. Both traditional and digital PR differ in strategies employed, but they both work for the same aim to achieve i.e., to get the word out about a brand.

To meet the online objectives, here are the numerous KPIs that one need to carefully measure: 

1. Backlinks
If your reach to bloggers or journalists goes well, your content on their platform would have links guiding guests back to your web site.

This has 2 effects:
1) backlinks are considered one of the Google’s high ranking factors, which might then facilitate your SEO; and 2) it might show the effectiveness of your reach efforts.
Backlinks shouldn’t be the first goal of your digital PR campaign, however, they’re one metric to benchmark your campaign against.

2. Conversions returning from PR hits
Once you gain backlinks from blogs and/or publications, you'll track if individuals really clicked and visited your web site.
More than that, you'll conjointly see if this crystal rectifier to engagement or conversions, like planning an arrangement, contacting you, purchasing, redeeming offers, or downloading content.

Google Analytics would show traveler interactions, ranging from landing page, to the pages they navigated, and at last, and the page wherever they left.
If there square measure specific actions you would like guests to perform on your web site, produce Goals in Google Analytics.

3. Social media conversations
Nowadays, the quantity of times your company and/or your content is mentioned on social media could be a legitimate metric.
Apart from Google Analytics, there square measure others tools you'll use to assist track mentions and conversations. This includes Mention (a period of time social media observation tool) and SharedCount (a tool to trace addressshares, likes, etc).

4. web site traffic
If your goal is whole awareness, measure the dealings in your net traffic could be a smart indicator of a made campaign.
Look at the boost in your traffic and distinctive guests through Google Analytics. attend Audience, then summary.

5. GA Annotations and address builder
Social and media mentions can provide you with a plan of the short-run successes in your campaign. However, you furthermore mght ought to verify the long effectiveness of your ways mistreatment the subsequent tools:

• Google address Builder – this can assist you track that of your campaigns drove traffic to your web site, regenerateinto leads, so to customers. rather than merely linking back to your web site mistreatment your address, use Google’s address builder. It attaches a campaign trailing code to your address, thus you'll see if anyone clicked on the links enclosed on your pitched content. to trace your campaigns, attend Acquisition menu, then Campaigns.

• Annotations – This Google Analytics feature would allow you to tag and add notes to bound events or actions that generated a spike in your traffic. for example, a PR hit from a upper-level publication would provide you with a short-run spike in your referral traffic. You then ought to note that event caused this spike to assist you retain track of that action generated results. Annotations would greatly facilitate with long analyses, particularly once you begin launching multiple campaigns.

SEO Tips for Crisis and Reputation Management

A brands reputation is one of the most vital assets for businesses in the age of competition and communication. Crisis management can begin with some reputation management practices followed by the entrepreneurs. The overall outlook of a brand is an integral part of its “Reputation”. Reputation management exists in two spheres in today’s world i.e. online and offline reputation. A brand with reputation management practices in place makes crisis management much easier. Crisis management is basically a process in which a brand deals with an unexpected and disruptive event that threatens to harm the organization, the general public or its stakeholders. Handling a crisis requires clear thinking, honesty and an outside perspective. One will need a strategy for handing sponsors, community relationships and more. One has to communicate effectively with their employees, keeping high-quality talent on board, and managing morale. At the stage of crisis, it is quite important for the management to have a word of mouth with their employees. Brands can also approach crisis management services as well in case of emergency.

When a crisis breaks, people naturally Google about the brand or business. But obviously, none of the professional communicator wants negative headlines or bad customer reviews topping the list of search results for their brand. So, here is when SEO plays a major role. Check few SEO tips for crisis and reputation management which many SEO experts in Delhi and all around the world shares:

• Monitor your results constantly and adapt quickly based on the results. Keep a close check.

• Keep your focus on Google for search results and the other search engines will gradually follow suit over time.

• Keep a review on your website for keyword placement and density (keyword/total word ratio), because you won't be found if the keywords are not present in the proper configuration.

• The most important tip of all is the content, which must be relevant to both the website and the web page.

• Update your website on the frequent basis, stale sites drop fast and fresh information keeps your site sticky.

• Avoid Flash content and frames pages; these websites cannot be reliably indexed.

• Obtain inbound links from relevant, high-profile websites with good Page Rank.

• Create multiple points-of-presence like blogs, article publication, social media, activity at forums where you can get as many positive messages out as possible whilst pushing the negative messages down on a search engine results page.

What will be agenda of leading PR agencies in India for 2018?

PR agencies were important to hire when there used to be traditional marketing, but with the advent of the digital era, PR agencies have become almost essential for a company to sustain its reputation and brand image in the market. Earlier rumors used to take some time to spread, but now with the excessive use of internet and quick online connectivity, leading PR agencies to say that the PR services they provide have gained even more importance.

Here is a list of basic agenda’s which play a very important role in the PR services-

1.      Communication

It is important to know that the work of PR agencies is to make sure that the message that is conveyed to the people is positively perceived by the individuals. Therefore, the modes of communication and what is communicated to the public has to be regularly monitored.

2.      Maintaining the brand image

The maintenance of the brand image of the company is the responsibility of the PR agencies. Brand image is the impression that any company has in front of its potential buyers. Therefore, if a company wants the potential buyers to buy the product from them, they have to talk about themselves and convince them that the brand is good enough for the public to remain loyal to them. Customer retention depends a lot on how the PR agencies maintain the brand image.

3.      Press conference

The press conference is one of the ways in which leading agencies help their clients in maintaining their image. It is important to be prompt and honest in organizing a press conference. Example – If there is a rumor that is spread in the market regarding the company, PR agencies use press conferences to hedge any problems.

4.      Product launch

If any company is launching a new product, then the launch of the product in the correct way is very important. It is the first time that product is made public. The product has to be launched around the right group of market influencers and it has to be ensured that the product is publicized in the correct way by the media. Such work is monitored by PR agencies and is one of the most important agenda in their list of services

5.      Social media marketing

Social media marketing in itself is very important for all the companies and it is picking up as an important agenda for the PR agencies as well. Nowadays, the information is transferred to people in a click. The people expect the companies to the extremely responsive towards social media. PR agencies help you with such services.

6.      Crisis management

A company comes into a crisis when there are events which start to threaten the existence of the company. It is the responsibility of the PR agencies to identify the reason for the crisis and take appropriate actions to contain the situation.

If you are a big company with different product verticals, it is essential for you to hire the leading PR agencies. Along with the listed agenda of PR agencies, there are many more things that PR agencies do for a company like events, seminars, conferences, trade shows, etc.