Digisec Media
Redefining digital enterprise
PR Mistakes Every Business Should Avoid
Even the smallest businesses need good public relations. An effective PR campaign helps you to promote your brand, your mission, and generate interest amongst prospects who might not have discovered you yet. From time to time, you may also need help with PR to manage your reputation, should you experience difficulties with customers or court controversy.
However, it’s critical to do your research before you dive headlong into the complex world of public relations. As with most areas of business, it’s sadly easy to make mistakes in PR that can affect your company for months (even years) to come.
Not Having a Plan
Some businesses might just issue a press release once in a while, to drive traffic to their websites and spread positive news. However, you need to have a broad PR plan in place to keep engaging with the public.
Come up with a list of goals and paths you can take to achieve them. For example, do you want to partner with a charity and conduct regular fund-raising activities for them? If so, brainstorm between five and 10 different ideas, and ways in which you can promote each.
You also need to know how the business will react should you face challenges. Will you issue a single press release to outlets with the widest reach, or will you produce an explanatory video to be shared across social media? Will you do both, and more?
Treat your PR activities seriously.
Releasing Press Releases with No Real News
From time to time, businesses will issue a press release to give their rankings a bump and generate interest in their brand.
However, they tend to forget the most important rule of a press release – that it should actually have a point.
These companies may well expect a copywriter to dress up services or products they’ve always offered as a new arrival, or to rehash old news. If you do this regularly enough, readers, editors, and potential customers may become familiar with your lack of news, and start to ignore any future releases you issue.
As a result, any press releases you put out there may not generate the traffic you expect, even if it breaks a big news story.
Being Offensive on Social Media
Every company should have one or more designated social-media specialists, or employ a marketing firm to handle their social activities.
Why? Because it’s far too easy for a frustrated employee or a confused executive with no Facebook experience to respond badly to a complaint, or to share materials they shouldn’t. Causing controversy on social media may have a negative impact on your reputation and leave a stain for years to come.
Even the biggest brands still drop the ball. For example, take a look at Coca-Cola’s mistake, that left Russian customers unamused.
People can share a rude or insulting post amongst their friends, and so on, and so forth, until thousands of people have seen how unprofessional you are.
Create a file listing topics and tones that should and should NOT appear on your social accounts. Keep the log-in details between only those you can trust.
Not Publishing a Blog
Today, it seems as if every business publishes a blog. If your company is avoiding this with an aim to be different, or in the mistaken belief that it’s a waste of time, think again.
Companies that blog experience 97 percent more links to their sites, and their pages will be indexed 434 percent more regularly.
You should be blogging as often as possible, as research shows that 92 percent of blog-users attracted customers on a blog that was updated multiple times each day. Be sure to cover topics related to your company, your customers’ common lifestyles, your industry, and anything else you believe relevant.
By avoiding these PR mistakes, you can help your business reach new customers, drive more traffic to your website, and build a better reputation.
