PR efforts of any organization are meant to keep it in the limelight. Building brand equity through continued efforts is one of the goals. For organizations with a large customer base, it is also important to ensure that no issue snowballs into a major controversy. People involved in the PR campaigns need to be on their toes to grab people’s attention for the organization as and when it is possible and to build a positive aura around it.
As information is now very often sought by people over the web, search engines and the search page results gain significance in the PR campaign. It is important to ensure that the results that rank high give a positive view of the organization when search is against a keyword relating to the organization. Directing people to a website is a part of the marketing initiatives but PR is about quality of those results.
1. Use blogs
Blogs make for an effective tool for building brand equity over the long term. These also serve as an effective medium for sharing information with your target consumer segment. Interact with potential and existing customers and direct disgruntled consumers to appropriate forums for resolution of issues.
2. Optimize the content of press releases
Use the same keywords as the marketing team or the ones that you want your content to rank high against. Maintain appropriate keyword density and use the primary keyword in the title.
3. Employ social media as a tool
Use social networking tools not just to interact with people and promote the latest products and services from your organization but also as a means to get recommendations from clients who can vouch for your products. Give prominence to client feedback. People trust feedback from users more than they would believe a marketer. Encourage people to talk about their experiences with your product.
4. Promote links to relevant content
Place links to information even in the press releases and promotional campaigns. This gets the pages more inbound links to rank higher in search engine result pages.
5. Involve consumers through an interactive campaign
Giving out information is not enough. You need to do more. Involve the consumers. Allow people to give feedback. Let people vote in favor or against a proposed change in your product. Make people feel that their feedback is valued by the organization and it plays a deciding role in the changes you implement in the way you render the services or the kind of features your products come with. This is likely to get you mentions on people’s blogs as well as social media platforms. Use visual content as well apart from text based content. This is in keeping with sites such as Pinterest gaining prominence.
Social media and the search results can significantly impact the prospects of an organization’s products. PR team of the organization needs to counter negative campaigns to contain the damage. Optimizing the campaign for SEO and building brand visibility, not necessarily through press releases but through blogs and other modes, can help you get the right message to reach the consumer.