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Did you know that even in an era dominated by digital media and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://newsfeed.mediaboard.com/p/how-to-come-up-with-a-strategy-for-social-networks-7">social networks</a>, press releases remain one of the most effective ways to reach the media and the public? Surprisingly, the format of press releases has undergone significant evolution and has adapted to new trends and technologies. This adaptability makes it an indispensable tool in the PR and marketing arsenal in 2024. In this article, we'll explore how to write press releases that not only capture attention but also fulfill their purpose in a world where information flows faster than ever.<h2>I What is a press release, and why is it important?</h2><h3>The Basic Structure of a Press Release</h3>Understanding what a press release is and its significance lays the foundation for any successful PR strategy. A solid press release format is the skeleton that supports your message's body, providing a clear structure from the headline to the boilerplate. Every press release should follow a specific structure to be effective. The key elements include:<ul><li>Headline: It must be concise while capturing the reader's attention.</li><li>Dateline: Indicates the location and release date.</li><li>Introductory Paragraph: Answers the who, what, where, when, and why questions.</li><li>Body of the Release: Provides details and additional information.</li><li>Boilerplate: General information about the organization.</li><li>Contact Information: Enables media to easily reach out to the issuing entity for further inquiries.</li></ul>Focusing on SEO is essential for enhancing the visibility of the press release in the digital space. Utilizing frequently searched keywords can increase the chance that your message reaches its target audience. The readiness to adapt traditional formats to the dynamic digital environment is key to success in contemporary PR practice.<component-embed-media src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mediaboard-publishing/blogs/bTpawblfQFao7j9jh01vSnsWa7Aq9pIz" alt="Press release" visible_alt="false" url="https://mediaboard.com/publishing-platform/" content_type="image/png" type="image"></component-embed-media><h2>I How to write a Press Release that engages</h2>For a press release to truly engage, it must be clear and concise. Incorporating multimedia greatly assists – adding high-quality photos or videos makes press releases more attractive. Infographics also help explain complex data simply. However, an effective headline is crucial, as it must capture attention immediately. And don't forget about quotes from experts. It's also important that the press release format is well-organized. Learning how to write a press release that captivates audiences involves more than just a compelling story; it requires strategic formatting, inclusion of multimedia, and a well-organized press release structure. Here’s an example of a press release format to guide you:<h3>What captivates?</h3><ul><li>Use subheadings</li><li>Bullet points for key details</li><li>Short paragraphs</li></ul>An example press release format should demonstrate how to write a press release that is easy to scan while providing all the necessary information. Press Release Example:<component-promo-box color_background="#0D61FF" color_text="#fff" content="<a target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener noreferrer nofollow&quot; href=&quot;https://newsfeed.mediaboard.com/p/mediaboard-is-the-21st-fastest-growing-technology-company-in-cen-5&quot;>Press Release Example</a>"></component-promo-box><h2>I Utilizing a media list for effective distribution</h2><h3>What a media list means and how to use it for your PR?</h3>An updated media list for press release distribution is key to ensuring your news reaches the intended audience. A <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/medialist/">Medialist</a> is the cornerstone of successful press release distribution. It's a compilation of journalist's contacts interested in your topic. Carefully curating a media list increases the likelihood that your message reaches the right people. Segmenting by industry and interest can help target more effectively. Once your media list is prepared, efficient press release distribution becomes crucial — for instance, through our publishing platform, which consolidates everything in one place. Maintaining an up-to-date media list is essential for every subsequent press release.Creating and updating a media list means you always have a ready target group for your news. It allows for more efficient communication and better results from your PR efforts.<h2>I How to create a media list for Press Release distribution</h2>Building an effective media list begins with thorough research. Gathering contacts for relevant journalists and media outlets is key. Online databases and lists are excellent resources to simplify this process. However, remember that updating the media list and adding new contacts is as important as its initial creation. Classifying media by type — such as print, online portals, blogs, and social networks — and by geographic location or industry specialization facilitates targeted press release distribution. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/medialist/">Find journalists interested in your topic</a> to ensure your news reaches the right people. Here are some tips for an effective media list:<ul><li>Regularly update it</li><li>Segment contacts for targeted distribution</li><li>Utilize online tools for collecting contacts</li></ul>This strategy ensures that the press release format is tailored to the needs and preferences of specific media. Once you have a media list ready, writing a press release becomes a much simpler process. Incorporating a press release kit template and press release email template into your outreach strategy can significantly improve your communication with the media.<component-embed-media src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mediaboard-publishing/blogs/aOfGaICWurh8zJPe598URSBXQSOdUZud" alt="Press release tips" visible_alt="false" url="https://mediaboard.com/medialist/" content_type="image/png" type="image"></component-embed-media><h2>I Press Release distribution services and their benefits</h2><h3>Every organization can have a Newsroom today!</h3>Choosing the right press release distribution services can significantly extend your press release's reach, making the distribution process seamless and more effective. In a world where a company's digital presence sets the game rules, establishing an online newsroom is essential for any organization. A centralized hub facilitates access to materials and information about the company. With resources like modern platforms offering easy interfaces and social media integration, creating a visually attractive newsroom is just a few clicks away. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/newsroom/">Create your own Newsroom</a> and enjoy access to analytical tools to track the success of your messages. This environment not only streamlines the distribution of press releases but also strengthens relationships with journalists and other media professionals. Establishing a newsroom presents an opportunity to showcase your best self and ensure that the structure of your press release always meets the expectations of your target audience.<h3>Emailing and measuring Press Releases</h3>Measuring the success of press releases is key. Emailing allows you to track how many people opened your message and clicked on links. This information is crucial for understanding what works. With data, you can refine your strategy. Perhaps the most important metric is the subsequent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/media-monitoring/">media monitoring</a>, which tells you how many media outlets picked up your press release and where it appeared. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/publishing-emailing/">Try Emailing in Mediaboard</a> to find out which journalists were interested in your message.<h2>I Press Release distribution trends in 2024</h2><h3>Adapting to digital media and social networks</h3>Today, it's necessary for the press release format to meet the requirements of digital media and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://newsfeed.mediaboard.com/p/6-ways-to-extend-your-social-media-reach-1">social networks</a>. This includes creating visually appealing content that is easy to share. It's important to ensure that material is accessible and attractive across different platforms. Adding hashtags can increase your visibility. When creating a press release, write not just for journalists but also for social media users. Short versions of your content can be highly effective for quick dissemination of news. The use of audiovisual elements, such as videos and photos, can also increase engagement.<h3>Personal approach to journalists and influencers</h3>In today's digital age, a personal touch becomes key. Understanding which audience will be most interested, where your topic fits thematically, and how to use a media list to find the right journalists are important for writing an effective press release. Personalized messages reflecting the specific interests of journalists and influencers can significantly increase interest in publication. The email addressing journalists and influencers should include:<ul><li>A personalized introduction, reflecting the history of collaboration</li></ul><ul><li>For journalists, a summary of the most interesting parts of the press release</li><li>For influencers, specified exclusive offers</li></ul>This strategy leads to both building longer-term and higher-quality relationships with the media and to effective work and writing a quality press release that reaches the right journalists.<h3>In conclusion...</h3>In 2024, press release format trends are moving towards digitization, visual appeal, and personalization. It's clear that traditional methods must merge with new approaches such as digitized newsrooms or content adaptation for social networks. The key to success is analytical tracking and strategy adaptation based on feedback from target groups. It's always important to remember that innovation and flexibility in communication methods are necessities for capturing attention and engaging the target audience with maximum impact.<h2>I Increase the reach of your press releases and simplify your work with the publishing platform from Mediaboard.</h2><component-embed-media src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mediaboard-publishing/blogs/tk8jpH7R1Zj4qpRLT2oRcOq8CGdqoFCL" alt="Newsroom" visible_alt="false" url="https://mediaboard.com/newsroom/" content_type="image/png" type="image"></component-embed-media><component-cta-button url="https://app.mediaboard.com/sign-up" bg="#0D61FF" label="Try for free" color="#fff"></component-cta-button>

How to Write a Press Release: Trends and Tips in 2024

It’s hard to reach our goal without a clearly set up vision. This works with our self-presentation within the social network. We must know what we do, why we do it and what we want to achieve with it.&nbsp;Majority of you surely have some kind of business strategy. However, there is not that many of you having a social media strategy. Since nowadays almost everything exists within the area of the online world, something like the social media strategy ought not to be neglected. Otherwise you may be creating super cool products, but nobody will actually know about them.While creating a communication strategy, you should answer four major questions for yourself:<ul><li>How do we work now? (analysis)</li><li>What do we want to achieve? (goals)</li><li>How do we achieve it? (strategy)</li><li>How do we measure it? (evaluation)</li></ul><h3>&nbsp;</h3>Many companies do not have any strategy at allAt the beginning, it’s crucial to realize that each company is different, and so each needs a different strategy. It’s not good to copy from the others. A successfull strategy of someone else’s company does not necessarily bring success to you as well. Each company has its own individual goals, capacity and needs, based on which creates the strategy.Many companies either do not have any strategy at all, or their strategy is rather poorly defined. If this is also your case, do not worry. Get down to the the first step – analysis. This should precede any changes you aim to make. Just sit down and find out about your current situation. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Think deeply, as you may either discover a problem you didn’t know about, or realize that you are doing pretty well.Before you begin with the analysis, become aware of what you need, and what is the actual reason for the analysis. Do you struggle with approaching your audience? Do you want to focus more on the visual side of your content? Come up with your goal.TIP: Would you like to know how is your brand perceived among people? Start with a research. It doesn’t have to be something large and expensive. Just go and ask a few questions among your clients or some random people on the street. Based on the experience provided by this pilot research, you may decide whether you want to commence something larger, or you already found all you needed.&nbsp;What are your goals?While establishing your goals, be sure to have them straight and clearly defined.<ul><li>S – specific</li><li>M – measurable</li><li>A – achievable</li><li>R – relevant</li><li>T – time framed</li></ul>Goals ought to be specific – clearly aimed at what we want to gain/realize. There should also exist an option of measuring the results. That’s practicable via various metrics or monitoring devices. A good one is measuring how people interact. During this process, you easily define the ones that are actually interested in the content you want them to.&nbsp;TIP: Mediaboard is capable of tracking what people talk about, what they say about you and your competition, what is the competition doing well and what isn’t, and also what topics are discussed within the field of the online world. Read more about the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://mediaboard.com/social-media-monitoring/">social media monitoring and the application Social Mediaboard</a>.&nbsp;A well defined goal is achievable. It’s important to observe how we are managing to fulfill the defined strategy. We may not worry to step in if need be. Based on the continuous results, we may define our goal better.It’s crucial to think about the goals’ relevance. The goals should respond to the company’s focus and what could help it to develop. Following the evaluation of the campaign’s success, it’s important to have it time framed. There also need to be clearly set up dates, during which we may recapitulate the existing process.&nbsp;<component-embed-vimeo url="https://vimeo.com/522692600"></component-embed-vimeo>Focused on strategyLooking closer at the strategy itself, we should be able to answer the following questions:<ul><li>What kind of social media will we use?</li><li>Who is going to be responsible for them?</li><li>What kind of content will be there?</li><li>What rules will we establish?</li><li>How much money, time and people will we earmark?</li><li>What are we going to solve externally?</li><li>What devices are we planning to use?</li><li>What are we going to evaluate?</li></ul>While choosing the kind of social media we want to be using, we should be thinking about our target group we aim to address. On Facebook we find various groups of people, on LinkedIn we meet business partners, and on Instagram we approach the young generation. It’s necessary to realize if we possess enough content, that we can share on those social media platforms. While Instagram and YouTube are oriented visually, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn make a use of text posts more.&nbsp;If you are willing to have a high-quality social network, you must be ready to put money into it. Finances do not come only with paid-for campaigns. You ought not to forget to cover the employees’ salary, external companies or the programmes you are using. Some of the programmes you may want to use are analytical devices – to which our Social Mediaboard belongs – or some sort of an assistance with creating the content (posts’s planning, publications plans).&nbsp;To evaluate the campaign, the aforementioned people interaction may be a good way to do so. A fine person interacts with the content, helps to share it and speaks about the brand. It doesn’t matter how many people get involved in the interaction. We care about those who leave some comments, give likes and watch our videos. The first-rate ones are those who click their way through the online world to our web and ideally become our clients.&nbsp;<component-embed-media src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mediaboard-publishing/blogs/FyEcuH10gKsUK5iYcmIe16klNR7XmlbG" alt="" content_type="image/jpeg" type="image"></component-embed-media>Social media is integral to today’s worldTo create a successful social media profile is not an easy task. However, nowadays, we come to interact with social media on our phones, laptops or ipads. Therefore, it’s not possible to neglect them when communicating with our clients. Use, study, analyse and optimize them based on your preferences.&nbsp;TIP: Some companies collaborate with influencers, in order to raise public awareness of their brand. If you are also looking for one, search among your clients. Isn’t there anyone influential, who is really interested in your brand and can promote it? In Mediaboard application you may see and make a use of the influence score – the amount of people influenced.

How to come up with a strategy for social networks?

As a Public Relations (PR) professional, you can spend days creating, planning, posting, and monitoring your social media platforms, but learning more about your audience is key to gaining more social media reach, generating leads, and increasing brand awareness. We can further break down these ideas to help expand your social media presence and increase your engagement.&nbsp;<h2>1. Focus on your target audience to gain more social media reach</h2>According to entrepreneur Jen Glantz, one of the biggest mistakes people make is that “they don’t ever speak to their target audience until the moment they’re ready to launch a business and try to sell a product or service.”It’s a mistake because you need to know who your target audience is. To do that, you can use customer personas to your advantage. Customer personas are fictional characters developed by a brand to represent a specific user or customer type. It includes who they are, what they do, where they’re from, demographics, affinities, etc.&nbsp;TIP: Sign up for a free trial of this social media analysis tool&nbsp;to learn more about your audience.This lets you produce content that speaks directly to users. If you haven’t developed your brand-specific customer personas, we have just the post for you. Figure out what your audience wants to see or hear, and post that. But remember to always post where your audience can find it. <h2>2. Meet your target audience where they are</h2>Once you get to know your audience, you need to find out what platform they engage with the most. Marketers often use social media monitoring to get the audience data they need for their social media campaigns.It’s also better to focus on one social media platform if it’s where you get most of your engagement. Focus your efforts on what’s already working. If the majority of your engagement and reach comes from Instagram, then spend your time creating killer content for Instagram. Repeat what works.Being strategic about posting times can also help extend social media reach. Generally, you’re more likely to increase engagement by posting early mornings on weekdays, but you can use our social media monitoring tool to get data more relevant to your audience. You can also answer these questions to figure out which platform might be best:<ul><li>What are your social media goals?&nbsp;</li><li>What is your product/service?&nbsp;</li><li>How much time do you have?</li></ul>With answers to these questions, you’ll be able to focus on the best-suited platform. The next step is to share content that gets people talking. <h2>3. Create engaging content</h2>Engagement is a key factor in increasing visibility. You’ll need to determine how engaging your content is to see where there’s room for improvement. Likes, saves, shares and comments – you want to get those numbers up.So, how do you create engaging content to gain more social media reach?<ul><li>Choose your niche – specific content will stand out and attract the right people</li><li>Create a posting schedule for consistency</li><li>Know your audience. (It’s worth repeating.)</li></ul>Your social media content is always being analyzed by the algorithms, and if your engagement is low, the algorithm determines that that piece of content isn’t very relevant. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, as of 2018 “ about 3 billion [internet users] were on social media. That’s a massive undertaking to monitor and manage. This is why algorithms are so crucial in determining the validity and placement of social media accounts and content.These platforms don’t want to lose users’ engagement, so if you want to extend your reach, make it easy for the algorithm. Analyze which of your posts have been the most successful, and post more of that. Find out what’s been working for you or your competitors here. Another way to make engagement easier is to create collaborative content – let’s talk about it.<h2>4. Work with influencers or other brands</h2>You want your users to develop a relationship with your brand, and in the same way, you can develop brand and influencer relationships that drive engagement and social media reach. eMarketer says that“ Creators are becoming brands in their own right, and marketers should treat them as such. Think of creators as publishers: Focus on finding relevant audiences and building relationships.”Find a complimentary service, a community, or an influencer that aligns with your brand, figure out what you have to offer, and reach out. If your potential partner agrees to collaborate, great. You just opened the door to their followers and built a bridge that can be mutually beneficial. Don’t be discouraged if your first choice doesn’t work out. There are plenty of fish in the influencer sea.Here’s a great example of an inspirational post by Nike where they paired with world champion sprinter, Dina Asher-Smith. They’ve also tagged others involved with the production. In the end, the post is creative and encouraging, and it widens the reach of everyone involved. <h2>5. Make your social media posts reachable</h2>When you share social media content, it’s obvious that your followers have access, but to extend your reach, take advantage of the following:<ul><li>Tagging</li><li>Locations</li><li>Hashtags</li></ul>We’ve just mentioned collaborations, but you need to make sure the involved parties are credited if you want greater exposure. If your content was collaborative, you can tag the artists, influencers, photographers, etc. The same goes for brands that you’ve decided to work with.Another function that can extend your social media reach is locations. If your post is location-specific, include it. People viewing that location’s landing page may just stumble upon your content and want to follow along.Then there are hashtags. If your brand is in the early stages or you’d like to continue expanding, using hashtags on Instagram can increase your reach by 20x according to a case study conducted by NapoleanCat. Careful though – this can start to look spammy. Only use tags, hashtags, and locations relevant to your post and/or brand. You can choose a high traffic hashtag and then add another keyword to make it more specific and relevant. If you’re interested in learning more, here are some hashtag tips. <h2>6.&nbsp; Don’t be afraid to try new things</h2>Marketing is trial and error. Gathering data, getting to know your audience, and taking calculated risks are all major parts of extending social media reach. Spend a little time creating something new that you think users will like. Think videos, infographics, giveaways, contests, etc.New trends are always popping up. If these new types of posts are well-made and used sparingly among tried and true content, this innovation may just attract a new community of engaged followers. If anything starts boosting social media engagement, add this new type of content to your rotation. <h2>Conclusion</h2>Make sure you’re meeting all of these requirements and watch your social media reach start to soar. Just make sure you’re spending enough time analyzing the data that comes in after a post.Your audience has responded and that’s who you’re posting for, so use the feedback to strategically adjust future posts.Third-party monitoring and analysis tools can be really helpful in analyzing data and determining what content is best for your brand.&nbsp;

6 Ways to Extend Your Social Media Reach

These titles are an interesting reading for long evenings during a pandemic and at the same time bring inspiration from the strategies and campaigns of iconic brands!<h2 style="text-align: start">David Ogilvy: Ogilvy on advertising</h2>Let’s start with the most important, the Bible of Marketing Communication, written by the great advertising magician David Ogilvy himself. One might think that a book over 30 years old cannot speak for the current, rapidly evolving advertising industry. Yes, times change, but basic human needs remain the same. And David Ogilvy will advise you on how to capture them over time.This book should become a compulsory study for anyone involved in the marketing industry. They will advise you, not only on how to get your dream position or write a successful text – the individual chapters will introduce you to the secrets of marketing research and reveal strategies that work across time and across the spectrum of customers. Don’t you believe in its timeliness? Just go through the internet and you will find out how many important marketing specialists still take the advice of this great to heart today. Times simply change, but the values remain.<h2 style="text-align: start">Harold Burson: The Business of Persuasion</h2>After Ogilvy’s book on advertising, it is impossible not to mention The Business of Persuasion from the legend in the field of Harold Burson. As many book reviews state, “If Ogilvy wrote the Bible for Advertising, Burson added a new law to the PR industry today.”Harold Burson is considered one of the most influential PR personalities. His book maps 70 years of career experience, through which he describes what Public Relation basically means and what functional methods it uses. The personal story blends with iconic moments from history and thus serves as a great guide for many professional marketing industries.<h2 style="text-align: start">David Meerman Scott: The New Rules of Marketing and PR</h2>Once you’ve studied the two previous books, you can read about the possibilities offered by current technologies and the digital environment. Only by finding a balance between constantly valid rules and current trends can we create a timeless and functional marketing campaign.Although The New Rules of Marketing and PR is also not the latest, it still offers a quality and easy-to-understand guide to ever-accelerating online marketing. As author David Meerman Scott himself says, “It’s important to get the right message to the right users at the right time.” It focuses on communication platforms in the global PR revolution, reflecting the current rules of social networks and other communication channels for quality and personal communication. with the customer to use. It focuses on the long-term aspect of building a relationship with clients and demonstrates all advice on relevant case studies.<h2 style="text-align: start">Tony Langham: Reputation Management: The Future of Corporate Communications and Public Relations</h2>Although building a good reputation seems to be the basic pillar of every PR department of a successful company, surprisingly, we do not find too many valuable books on the market that would give us factual and meaningful advice on how to do it. The author of the book, Tony Langham, claims that “a good reputation represents the future of PR and corporate communication.” And this is exactly what the case studies of the world’s most successful marketing companies prove.In addition to many impressive models and diagrams, the book offers a variety of motivational essays and exclusive interviews with CEOs of the world’s leading companies. He deals with current issues such as fake news, cyber security and bullying on the Internet. There are also personal contributions from almost forty important world managers, who explain the ways in which they themselves have raised the reputation of their company. This book should become an indispensable educational material for all leading marketing positions and students of such established fields.<h2 style="text-align: start">Alexander Jutkowitz: The Strategic Storyteller – Content Marketing in the Age of the Educated Consumer</h2>Stories have never been lost out of our world. The right story determines our place in this world. And this also applies to your company.Alexander Jutkowitz has held many interesting positions in the field of digital architecture, politics and creativity in more than 30 countries around his world and now combines all his experience as the CEO of successful multinational companies. With many examples of the world’s most successful brands, it shows how with the right creative concept you can turn weaknesses into new opportunities in a short time. The book explains how to strengthen individual and collective creative potential by creating stories, helps to understand storytelling strategies and advises on how to distribute stories in today’s digital environment. “Cross demographic stereotypes and focus on the moments that unite us,” advises the author.

5 PR and marketing books you should read

The field of Public Relations is constantly changing and with it the necessary knowledge, skills and tools. However, the advent of social networks has had the greatest impact on PR. This new kind of media has, once and for all, changed the way we share and promote news and stories.Today, PR professionals have to deal with a never-ending influx of news and posts on social networks on a daily basis. At the same time, both fields must be constantly on the lookout and prepared for a possible crisis that may flare up from an initially inconspicuous customer complaint. Therefore, a crisis plan should always be in place, with which the company can prepare for an unpleasant situation.<h2>How do social media and PR fit together?</h2>With the rise of social media marketing, some PR professionals are beginning to realize that there is a natural connection between the two. Both are based on communication, and social networks also strengthen the reach of PR – they enable it to reach a larger number of people faster and more effectively.Examples are press releases that reach various audience groups via social networks. Previously, PR was aimed only at ‘chosen’ groups of people, such as investors. With the advent of social networks, the opportunity arose to reach and engage an even wider audience.PR on social networks will allow your brand to build a more personal relationship with customers and, in addition, make a more accessible impression. PR professionals will literally be in their element when writing posts. They know how to involve influencers in communication, through which the product that your brand promotes can be made known. They can also build in relationships with customers from which your company can benefit in the future.<h2>How to connect PR and social networks?</h2>In some organizations, the two departments work together, while in other companies they work independently of each other. How best to connect them so that their cooperation brings the right results?First and foremost, it’s important to realize that all of your brand’s communications should give the impression that they come from the same organization. Sometimes it happens that both departments communicate the same topic but in a different way, which can be confusing for the audience. Therefore, from the start, create a strategy that will unify the PR and social networks departments. The whole of society can benefit from their close cooperation, as communication will be more coherent and uniform.<ul><li>Customers: The social networking team is very close to customers, so they also have an overview of what forms of communication and promotion work for your brand. Thanks to this, it offers an interesting insight for PR professionals, who can look for feedback or user-generated content (content created by web visitors) on social networks, which would be suitable for other company campaigns.</li></ul><ul><li>Ethics: As a brand, you definitely don’t want to sound out of place or even callous. Involve the Public Relations department, from which you can get important feedback on the tone of your messages. PR professionals have a practical sense of what content is appropriate and in line with corporate values. With their help, the social networking team can create communication that coincides with other activities of the company.</li></ul><ul><li>Sharing: Automatically include links to corporate social networks in press releases. This will allow reporters and audiences to connect with you quickly and easily when needed.</li></ul><ul><li>Crisis communication: In order for your brand to continue to thrive, it is crucial that in the event of any crisis, PR and social networking teams come together and coordinate their other outputs together. The social networking team is sometimes the first to know about an emerging crisis, so it can alert the PR department in time to help them create the right response.</li></ul><ul><li>Monitoring social networks: So-called ‘social listening’, which we recently wrote about in this article, should now be an integral part of your PR department’s action plan. Monitoring social networks allows them to better understand how people receive various messages and whether they respond favorably. Through this activity, you can also monitor how your company is recovering from a possible crisis event.</li></ul><h2>Social PR</h2>Don’t separate PR departments and social networkers, practice “social PR” instead. You may eventually decide to combine the two teams into one, or allow them to work together more.

How social networks have changed PR

This year, companies spent 27% more on ads on social networks than in the same period last year. No wonder – almost 200,000 tweets are added every minute and we send almost 60 million messages on Messenger and WhatsApp. With the growing presence on social networks, there was a need to monitor, analyze and actually listen to people on them (so-called social monitoring and social listening). The issue is extensive, so we bring you this article, in which we summarized the main benefits of monitoring social networks and working with it.<h2>1. Find out what you really are up to</h2>The most obvious reason for monitoring social networks, and therefore tracking conversations and opinions about your brand, is to let you know what your customers really think of you, what you can improve on, and what you can’t change. It is an authentic and inexpensive tool for continuous feedback monitoring. Many marketers have even started using social networks instead of traditional feedback tools, such as guided discussions. To approve a new product design, they only delete the visual and then just collect opinions and comments.Another great way to work with social monitoring applications is to monitor the competition. Through the competition, you can find out what your clients like and don’t like, you can be inspired by their successful campaigns and, conversely, avoid the unsuccessful ones. And last but not least, you will find out who is talking about your competition and in what light – whether they are journalists or customers. This brings us to the second point:<h2>2. Discover influencers and new audiences</h2>The word influencer has been used so often in recent years that it has acquired a negative connotation. However, for many brands, this strategy works and the numbers prove it – influencer marketing grows by tens of percent every year! With social network analytics, you’ll learn not only who’s talking about your brand, but also who people trust and listen to within your industry. You can start tracking them and possibly start working with them.Monitoring social networks will also help you identify your enthusiastic customers who can become ambassadors for your brand. Reach out to them and offer them rewards for talking about your products. Social listening applications will help you find suitable influencers and ambassadors, and then it is up to you to develop cooperation.<h2>3. Find topics that really interest your customers&nbsp;</h2>By listening to your current and potential clients, you will find out what interests them and what is important to them. If you create content that solves their problem or makes their work easier, they will certainly appreciate it. You can easily mark the influencers in the post and call it a home run.The analysis of current trends and the complaints of your clients will certainly be of interest to colleagues from other departments. Don’t be afraid to share information and show that social networks are not just about so-called flower posts (puppies, kittens, etc. are relevant perhaps for a brand of pet food).<h2>4. Improve your customer support&nbsp;</h2>Companies have been using social networks for their customer support for a long time. But there is a difference between simply answering customer questions and requests in Messenger and using social networks to listen to and understand what people really want. 67% of customers use social networks as a channel of support – they complain, ask questions, share their opinions and ratings. Thanks to modern applications, you can monitor not only the classic social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube, but also a wide range of discussions and blogs. Solve your customers’ problems before they come to you. They and all others will certainly appreciate it.<h2>And finally: 4 + 1 steps for effective work</h2>In general, four steps are recommended when working with social networks: look for, listen, understand, act. The first phase of the search is mainly about monitoring and finding the right places and relevant mentions of your brand. In the second step, you need to constantly monitor what is being said about you. The understanding phase consists in the analysis of the content and thus of the individual situations. Finally, you need to find solutions to problems and work to make your customers happier.In order for everything to work well, it is also necessary to set keywords according to which the application will search for individual mentions. This is not as easy as it may seem at first glance. You need to know all the names under which you will find your brand online. For Česká spořitelna, it is therefore necessary to take into account the name “savings” and for Coca Cola, for example, “cola”. What you don’t have to worry about is declension – the best tools for social monitoring on the Czech market are well prepared for that.And if you do not wish to enter keywords yourself, not all is lost: “As with traditional media monitoring, we are happy to help customers with the set-up and subsequent optimization of keywords. We want our clients to use our tools as efficiently as possible and to make a real difference from them,” says Lenka Šafránková, Customer Success Manager.