How to be successful as a PR professional

Public Relations is not an easy sector to begin with and as a PR professional, you are your client’s representative. The way you act and handle things will directly be reflected on the reputation of your client in the market. Therefore, it is necessary to know all the dos and don’ts before you step foot into the industry. PR is an ever-evolving industry and while a good PR firm would always take the time to teach its employees the basics of navigating the communication and media world, there are some rules that are unwritten – these are the ones that the aspiring PR candidates need to understand on their own.

Let us discuss some of these unwritten rules of the PR world that can make or break your career.

Know your job role’s limitations

If you work for the leading PR firms in Delhi NCR, you have to know that there are certain things that are beyond your pay grade – for instance, finalizing deals or signing media invites. Only the executives of your company have that authority. It is, therefore, very important that you be aware at all times not to overstep your jurisdiction on such matters. Whenever you are in doubt, always consult your seniors for advice instead of taking the decision yourself. PR world is all about high stakes and your one ill-informed decision can become the undoing of a well-reputed organization. Needless to say, it will negatively affect your own career as well. So don’t take such chances.

Keep the bulb in your head on

PR requires hard work, dedication and constant innovation. If you don’t like being creative all the time then this is perhaps not the right career for you. But if you’re a natural problem solver and love challenges, then you’ll like it. Many PR firms in Delhi and in fact, all across India, value creative people. As a PR professional, you have to be a dynamic thinker and be able to occasionally venture out-of-the-box. People like things that are relatable yet unique and you need to make sure the stories you push out have those attributes. It’s not always easy but it’s always very rewarding.

Be a good conversationalist

Holding a meaningful conversation with an unknown person is an art in itself and if you’re looking to make an impact on the PR world, you should start training for it. It is a PR professional’s job to find opportunities for their clients and while this can be achieved in a number of ways, phone calls and face to face conversations are still the best methods of doing so. Written conversation isn’t always effective and it’s a one-way approach – whereas talking to someone allows you to understand their needs and demands in a much better way.

Keep the personal away from professional

If you’re planning a life where you’ll be dealing with people all day long, week after week, month after month, year after year – you cannot afford to be jumpy or someone who gets easily annoyed or angered. Diplomacy is always the way to go. Under stress of work and whatnot, the clients or the media house representatives can sometimes be curt. Sometimes, you may be blamed for something that isn’t your fault. Sometimes, someone may snap at you out of the blue. But remember to always keep your composure and take things in stride. Your politeness and positive attitude will help you develop lasting relations with people and since PR is all about creating networks, it’ll guarantee you success in the long run.

How long does it take SEO to work for a new website?

According to the top SEO companies in Delhi, one of the most frequently asked questions by the clients is, “How long will it take for SEO to work for a new website?” And it’s a pretty valid question. When you’re putting in so much time and resource into getting traffic on your website, it only makes sense that you’d be worried about getting the results quickly. In the article below, we’ll try to answer that question.

SEO used to be easy a few years ago. With a proper plan, you could get to the first page of Google results within a span of a few months. But SEO is super-competitive now. There are over a billion blogs on the web, and even more websites. So when you combine all of that, it makes sense as to why SEO is so hard these days. Let’s first see how SEO has changed over the years.

So addressing the elephant in the room, how long does it take to rank on Google? Well, it depends. On an average, it takes a new website 4 to 6 months to start seeing some traction. However, because there are so many factors involved, SEO companies in Delhi or other metro cities cannot give you a definitive answer. But if you want to rank faster, there are some things that you ought to know.

First thing you should look at is at your site and make sure that it is secure and accessible to Google crawlers. Are you using ‘https’? Is your ‘robots.txt’ blocking the wrong pages and allowing access to the right ones? Are you using a sitemap and submitting it to Google Webmaster Tool, so that Google can crawl on your pages?

Is your website fast in load time? If it is fast, it not only is going to boost your ranking (because page speed is a part of their algorithm) but it will affect conversions as well!

The other thing that you need to look at is if your site is mobile friendly. Did you know that more than half of the searches on Google are done by mobile devices? If your website doesn’t look nice on a mobile device, don’t expect Google to rank it high up.

Another thing that you have to look at is if you have authoritative content. If you just have generic content, it won’t cut it. Google doesn’t want to promote the same regurgitated content over and over again. They want you to provide something that’s unique – something that people haven’t read before.

Quality backlinks are also something that you need to think about. Getting links from authoritative sites is one thing, but if those sites are emulated, you’re not going to do well. PR agencies in Delhi suggest that you should create unique content in order to attract the right type of links.

You should also pay attention towards social signals. Even though social signals “do not play a role” in Google ranking, there is a positive correlation between the websites that rank high and that have higher social signals. Remember, Google wants to rank pages at the top that people love. So if people like a page, they’re more likely to link to it and they’re more likely to share it on social media.

Finally, you need to ensure that you have your Google business information listed – especially if you’re a local business. You need to claim your Google My Business profile; you need Yelp reviews and Google reviews; you need to have a good Better Business Bureau page. The more reviews you can attract, the better off you are.

The big takeaway is, when you do the right things and you go above and beyond the call of duty and put the user first, you’ll rank faster than if you just “optimize” your page for Google and not put the user first.

6 easy steps to get traffic on a new website

It’s easy to do SEO when you already have a website that has got a ton of backlinks; it’s easy to spend money on paid advertising when you’re an already established company. But what should you do if you’re just starting out with your website and how can you get that traffic? We consulted with some of the best PR agencies in Delhi to find out what steps can a budding start-up take in order to get traffic to their website. Let’s discuss these tactics in detail.

Partner with other content creators

Have you thought about co-hosting blog content? It includes collaborating with other people to create content on a similar topic. For example, you can do a joint webinar, joint podcast, interviews, or round-up posts. By partnering with other people, you’ll notice that they’ll promote the content and you’ll promote the content, so you’ll get double exposure. Now, you might be thinking if you don’t have traffic to begin with, why anyone would want to create content with you?

That’s right, which is why you conduct interviews. People are always thrilled about being interviewed and hardly ever say no to them. So when you publish the interview on your website, those people would share it, and this way you’ll get traffic on your website. Now it’s true that not all interviewees would share the content, but a large portion (in the vicinity of 30%-40%) would, especially if you email them and ask them to share.

Giveaways, contests or promotions

Reach out to other websites in your niche; offer them something that’s valuable to your audience and they’ll spread the word. When they do, you’ll get extra traffic. When you do giveaways, you get a ton of traffic and engagement and you can then leverage this traffic to keep your audience hooked. Whenever you’re doing giveaways, always make sure you collect people’s email addresses, because by doing so, whenever you publish any new content, you can call back on those people. This is one of the favourite marketing strategies used by the top PR firms in Delhi.

Push Notifications

It is one of the simplest ways to keep getting more and more traffic. Just think of it this way: if someone comes to your site, are they going to come back? Chances are, no! According to Google analytics, you’re among the lucky ones if three months down the road, even 1% of your audience comes back.

With push notifications, someone can subscribe to your site with just one click – without having to give any personal information or email address. When in the future you release any type of content, promotions, new features, etc, you can message them all at once and quickly get them back to your website.

Paid Ads

It’s okay if you don’t have a big budget: Google Adverts will often give you $50 to $100 in terms of free ads that you can use to get a quick boost in traffic. It’s true that those visitors may not turn into customers as you may not have enough time to run optimal campaigns, but it is a good start.

Guest Posting

This is something that the SEO companies in Delhi like to do a lot. You need to hit up some of the most popular guest contributors on popular blogs. Interact with them for a while, and once you’ve built a nice repertoire with them, you can ask them to introduce you to the editor of them blog. Now, since you’ll be introduced via a writer, the likelihood of you getting accepted would be much higher. Then you can write blogs there and create backlinks for your website.

Comment on other blogs in your industry

Now that doesn’t mean commenting things like, “good job”, or “nice post”. You need to give a detailed, valuable feedback regarding the post. Now when you comment on a blog, it asks for your name and your URL. In the URL section, give the link to your website. Now, when people will read your comment and find it valuable, they’d want to know more about you and click on your website link and you’ll eventually get traffic.

5 tricks the PR companies use to get media coverage

People don’t buy products and services; they buy relations, magic and stories – and PR is all about telling stories that strike a nerve with the people and create mobilization. John D. Rockefeller said, “Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know that you’re doing the right thing. This is where PR companies come through. They take the message from their client, wrap it in a wonderful story and get it across to the target audience. Here are 5 tips that PR companies use to deliver successful stories.

Writing Press Releases

One of the best ways of branding is to write press releases and then get the reputed media portals to publish them. Obviously, you cannot straight away advertise about your client. There has to be something of value for the reader in the press release. This is why many PR companies in Delhi hire writers who are excellent at writing press releases that get picked up by the media portals solely on their merit.

Guest Posting

The world out there is always hungry for expert advice on a myriad of topics. PR firms in Delhi and other metro cities in the country capitalize on this and indulge in guest posting. Popular media portals out there have a loyal reader base, and if you post something of value there, it helps you establish yourself as an expert in the field and lends credibility to your work. Naturally, the articles that the PR companies post on these media portals are posted under client’s name. This is a great tool that many PR agencies use for branding.

Newsjacking

No matter how good you are at delivering your products and services, you cannot straight out say so. If you do, such kind of a story wouldn’t get much coverage and those who read it will have a hard time taking you on your word. A good way, therefore, to establish your presence in the market is newsjacking. This is a means of indirect advertising. As a PR firm, you have to look for the trends and stories that are striking a chord with the people. You then try to create a story for your client around that trend to make it more interesting for the people.

Capitalizing on FOMO

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is an actual thing. No editor wants to be in a place where his is the only publication that didn’t missed out on a viral opportunity. Pulling off this kind of a stunt requires some capital investment, but when it works, it does wonders. For example, the dollar shave club paid for a promotion and got nearly 4 million views. Once the story became viral, every publication wanted a piece of it, and because of that the video now boasts a staggering 24 million views. Therefore, FOMO strategy works, given that the PR agency you’ve hired knows what it’s doing.

Mainstream media isn’t the only way

A decade ago, mainstream media was perhaps the only option in order to get your brand in the eyes of the public. But things have changed over the years and PR companies have changed their strategies accordingly. This is the age of influencers and mini-celebrities and their audiences are often much more loyal as compared to those of mainstream media portals. By reaching out to these people, brand promotion can be done in a much cheaper and more efficient manner. 

5 simple social media hacks that will help your business grow faster

Almost every business these days has an account on all the popular social media websites, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And a majority of these businesses post regularly on their handles as well, but they hardly get anything in terms of engagement – whether you count likes, comments, shares or clicking on the website link. To solve this problem, we surveyed many leading social media marketing companies in the country and came up with 5 hacks that can get you instant engagement. Here they are:

Respond to comments

Whether you talk about Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram, they all value a comment more than a like, because it shows a genuine interest in the post. So when someone comments on your post, reply to them and encourage them further by asking them a question. PR firms in Delhi say that when you do this, you not only get more comments but also keep the momentum going. This way, your post is much more likely to go viral on the said platform.

Keep your sentences short

As per the social media marketing companies, this one is especially for LinkedIn. Whenever you’re sharing content on this site, always keep your sentences short. If you want to write more, add a ‘see more’ link. Because when people click on ‘see more’ the chances of your content going viral, increase.

Be social; don’t just promote your business

If you think that you can go on social media websites, advertise your products and get sales leads, you’re in for a big awakening. It doesn’t work that way. The whole point of social media websites is to encourage social networking between different people, brands and businesses. And if you’re not an active player in that, you’re going to be left behind. So every once in a while, let’s say two to three days a week, share a quote or a picture or a story – anything that makes your business appear more human – and your numbers will grow.

Leverage stories on Instagram and Facebook

Stories get so much engagement on social media platform. Since Instagram is trying to beat Snapchat, it is promoting the accounts that share more stories and as a business brand, you should capitalize on that. Don’t just share one story a day; share multiple stories – as many as you want!

Test out videos

Social platforms love videos. So if you can create videos (many PR firms in Delhi have incredible creative teams that can help you in this regard), you’re giving them more potential eyeballs instead of the television networks. That is why companies like Netflix are pushing so much unpaid content. All the social media sites want that video content and you can really shine by leveraging this opportunity.