Every year at this time we gather with friends and family and take a look at what we’re thankful for in our lives. It can apply just as much to our careers and work environment.
Here’s my PR Thanksgiving list:
- Technology: We’ve made great strides in PR with the use of digital technology. We now have tools and apps that help us to listen to our audiences, create content that resonates with them, distribute it in the right places and measure our PR efforts.
- Social Media: We can connect with journalists, bloggers and the public in a way we’ve never been able to do before. We’ve got Twitter, LinkedIn and sites like MuckRack to help us with media relations. Journalists are open to conversations online and they are looking for story ideas and sources.
- Search Engines: Over the past fifteen years the amount of content online has exploded. Without search engines we’d never find anything. And the media and interested public would never find our content either. I’m thankful for every Google update because it makes the Internet more accessible and gives a better experience to the searcher.
- Bloggers: We no longer have to rely on top tier media to reach our audiences. Bloggers have become an accepted part of the media landscape and blogs are now the number one source of trusted information and advice for women in the US. We can find and work with influential bloggers in our niche to spread our messages.
- Analytics: The best part of the digital age is that every click can be tracked and measured. PR has become a viable, trackable, measurable activity. No more ‘warm and fuzzy’ and ‘ you can’t measure that’. Hard numbers are available and can show real results.
There is one caveat to all this – you have to learn how to use the technology. PR pros are uniquely positioned to lead this digital content wave, if they add digital PR skills to the ones they already have.
Happy Thanksgiving.
