Focus More on Video Content to Increase Audience Engagement

The rise of video content in India is widely noticeable and acceptable. From simple clicks and engaging write-ups, viewers are quickly changing gears to posting video content on social media. Videos are more interesting and give a clear message to the viewer about the brand’s key message. Therefore, today’s viewers find video content entertaining, relatable and quite relevant as compared to pictures and write-ups.

No doubt, blog posts, podcasts, images, and infographics play an essential role in content marketing, but videos have emerged as the most significant tool that has the potential to inspire action among audiences. Predictions say that 2019 will see 80 per cent of global internet consumption in the video only. Today, many social media companies and PR agencies have started serving video content to their clients, and thus reaped better results. Video content adds charm to email campaigns and develops more interest among the audiences. That’s why even the search engines often rank videos among the most searched category.

Approximately 40% of millennials find video content more reliable as compared to others, as per a recent study by Google. According to a Ficci-EY report, India is expected to become the second-largest online video-viewing audience globally by 2020; online video consumers are estimated to reach 500 million by 2020. Another Cisco 2017 report highlighted that video content is projected to account for 76% of all online traffic in India by 2021. By 2021, it is expected that India will generate 84 billion internet video minutes per month, equaling to 160,000 years of video on a monthly basis.

Social media companies and PR agencies are thus articulating their content through more and more video content and increasingly engaging more audience on their websites. However, it has also given rise to the existing competition as more companies are adopting the video approach. There are tons of videos posted every day, and thus it is becoming difficult for brands to create new space in the world of digital marketing.  Hence, brands will have to be more pragmatic and intelligent in approaching their customers with more personalized offerings.

In today’s mobile-driven world, we are mostly glued to our smart phones. However, as per research, internet regarding hours of video watched will catch up to TVs in 2019. Plus, there will be more people to watch mobile videos, and they will be spending around 45 minutes on YouTube. As marketers, social media companies and PR agencies should take full advantage of such opportunities and help brands stand unique in the market.

The future of PR business with its winning trio pack

The Public Relations (PR) industry is a lot like the economies of most of the developing countries that are struggling hard to gain a space in the group of developed nations. Both the places are stuck with the same problem, i.e., the rich are getting richer, while the middle class are feeling the pressure of financial crunch and the poor ones have nowhere to go and face the severe shutdown of even the necessities in their lives.  

The PR sector is quickly evolving and moving ahead with great advantages of the tri-pack of Traditional PR, Advocacy PR and Social Media. While all these three elements point towards three different directions so to be fair and gain a practical financial benefit from them all the big PR agencies in Delhi flush in a significant chunk of their funds towards advocacy, then to social media and the last is adjusted with the Traditional PR activities. To understand what lies in store for the PR firms in Delhi and around the world, let’s discuss each of the elements of tri-pack in detail:

Traditional PR: Similar to the middle-class families, this vertical holds the maximum population of the PR industry in its cover. This is what most of PR professionals and entrepreneurs of PR business in Delhi are doing every day, media relations. It revolves around researching, writing and getting the stories of the client uploaded on print, online or electronic media. Even in the present scenario, it holds much power and cost-effective properties as compared to the advertising techniques.  Many PR firms in Delhi and around the world are doing great via this landscape, but considering the growth requirements and the massive rise in the workloads, the option doesn’t have much to give the businesses.

Advocacy PR:  This is when a team of well-funded publicists and influencers, pumped with several bucks flood the media, be it online or offline verticals with well-crafted talking points, attacks and proprietary data to keep the conversation revolving around a particular brand. While traditional PR aims at spreading the message of brand far and wide, Advocacy PR focuses on keeping the word in the minds of the audience for long.

Social Media: From professional to casual campaigns, high budgeting to an expenditure restricted to few bucks only, social media is prevalent with many methods for the PR professionals to highlight a brand’s reputation as per its requirements. The most benefitting element that social media hold for PR agencies in Delhi is that they provide an instant real-time response of the campaigns which no other medium can provide as of now.

Trends to stand unique in the world of marketing

The patterns and methods of connecting with consumers in the world of marketing have continuously changed over the years. While marketers follow something today, something new arrives the next day. It gives less time to marketers to quickly adopt such changes and those who fail, get easily outshined by their competitors. Amidst the changing marketing landscape, there are things that social media companies and PR agencies should always keep in mind.

Firstly, security has become a significant concern for users. It is critical for brands and companies to ensure that customer privacy is still maintained, especially in terms of their financial and personal data. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect in Europe this year has pushed consumers to pay more attention to how businesses safeguard their information.

Voice search and voice recognition are ground-breaking technologies that are rapidly changing consumer experiences. After all, saying is always better and easier than typing when it comes to placing orders online. Consumers love this technology as it reduces their efforts of typing as well as screen time.

Video is another innovation that has garnered many likes in recent years. Marketers, PR agencies and social media companies, all are switching to video content in promoting their client’s businesses. However, it’s not that easy. There needs to be a proper strategy behind every video post. And, YouTube is the most important tool to carry out such services. Video is going to stay.

Another innovation is vertical video. Although very few players have started this feature, it still is in the nascent stage. Players like Netflix and IGTV have already launched this feature, where viewers can watch videos in vertical mode. Soon, it will grow more, and people will switch to this mode. This mode is mostly used for publishing animated videos, interviews, demos to name a few.

In addition, as Gen Z gets older and attains buying power, companies need to pay attention to this category. Their history has always been astonishing; there wasn’t any industry that Gen Z didn’t victimize. This generation seeks authenticity and prefers businesses that stand socially responsible. It has become crucial for marketers, PR agencies and social media companies to take care of these trends. It will help them understand the changing patterns of businesses and consumers. Offerings consumers better services will give these companies new opportunities to grow and expand their businesses in today’s world of marketing.

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.

How to Use Social Media to Amplify the Sales Volume

From small businesses to big industrial houses, social media has turned out to be a valuable tool for them all. From building a brand’s reputation to creating a loyal customer and client base, to even increasing the sales, this great tool of digital world is ringing in success for them all. Going by the several studies, research works and ideologies of the experts, social media companies in Delhi and around the world are more compatible in utilizing these portals for deriving good sale numbers as compared to individuals doing the same. Here are the five most prominent ways with which the social media agencies have completely transformed a brand’s reputation and sales to a whole new level.

1.      Get a better understanding of your audience and customer- base

The best for a social media agency in Delhi or around the world to adopt for creating a successful social ion from past media campaigns is to closely understand the client’s target audience and meet as well as communicate with them then and there only. The ideal first step to do so is by reaching them with the concerned brand message on the portals where they are already present. Creating numerous accounts won’t reap much good and will only lead to wastage of resources. Instead, of doing so it’s best to first gain a deep insight about the platforms that the concerned audience is using and then focusing on communication over the couple of concerned platforms only.

2.      Utilizing the paid-ads

When the motto is to drive in sales through social media, the campaigns can’t remain restricted to regular posts and comments only. The best way to achieve this motto of a brand is to get the assistance of relevant paid ads. Social media experts and smart professionals working in social media companies and PR agencies in Delhi suggest that a good blend of paid and organic media can great benefits to a concerned brand. While, paid media can be leveraged to reach the audience, organic things, on the other hand, can be utilized to increase the time-span of keeping the eyes linked with the content and the brand.

3.      Grab information from past campaigns

Like almost everything learned from the several domains of life, it’s important to learn lessons from past mistakes and accordingly make changes to get the campaigns more successful and sales-benefitting. So, it’s advised before creating a campaign closely go through the social media analytics and insights to decide what needs to be worked upon and what isn’t. It’s good to fail sometimes, as it will make you learn and come up with a much better and energetic performance. From budgets to objectives to creative's to uplifting sales and more businesses would gain great knowledge from past performances. So, don’t shy to take new risks and opt for new challenges as even if you fail you are learning something that will ultimately bring you to great success.