How to Leverage Successful PR Placement
1. Linktag, when possible.
Digital-first news sources have policies in place around “link-tagging”, or how they embed references to company names, sources, and citations. Reporters don’t always know what these policies are, so browse some articles on the site to learn more. If you’re able to score a link within your placement, you’ll be able to easily measure the impact of website visits and referral traffic driven from the media source by checking Google Analytics.
2. Be a force multiplier.
Arm your team with canned social media posts they can copy and paste to their personal accounts. Don’t get stuck in the same echo chamber — cross-pollinate your story across as many networks as possible. Of course, you’ll want to fast-track a post to your company’s social media channels as well.
3. Understand the ecosystem effect.
Major media companies (the best of the best) fancy themselves as brands, too. Which means they have built a large digital footprint beyond their website. Follow their Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages, if applicable, and wait for your story to post. In the case of Axios (one of my favorites), they have a popular Instagram with condensed stories. Also be aware of any specialized newsletters they deliver based on a reporter’s beat or other trends (Fortune has 15 of them). This self-contained ecosystem is designed to boost a story’s reach, and with it, your message.
4. The art of the “soft touch”.
Lock and load a custom email blast to your top prospects, ensuring you’re top of mind. The buzz brings instant credibility and a fresh opportunity to engage with your stakeholders in a whole new way. The most rewarding situation? A prospect emails you the story they found organically.
5. Let it marinate.
The shelf life of the article being featured on the homepage or in ‘Google News search results may be shorter than desired. But that doesn’t mean the clicks won’t keep coming. Give yourself at least two weeks post-placement to capture data on referral traffic to your site. Then, debrief with the team internally about the numbers. If it’s your first time doing this, that’s OK, too. You now have a benchmark in place.
Use these tips to optimize your public relations efforts, but understand that it’s not a reporter or media company’s job to make you look good or drive leads to your business. It is, however, an agency/firm/consultant’s job to make sure you’re set up for success when it happens. Part of that means communicating with the sales team when inbound leads start trickling in. As more and more print media goes to the morgue, your public relations strategy needs to be married to a digital strategy to maximize results for your business.
Anthony Stipa is the founder of Quickstudy Consulting and a strategic partner of Bongo Consulting. Quickstudy excels at creating, packaging, safeguarding, and delivering public relations communications that create brand awareness and business results.
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