10 Ways To Integrate Social Media With Your PR Campaign

The public relations industry has been completely transformed over recent years, thanks in part to the power of social media. This platform lets us publish reactions to events instantly, which suits the fast-paced world of PR down to a T.

If you’re a communications professional looking for some social media know-how, you’ll appreciate these top 10 tips on how to integrate social media into your next campaign.

1. Establish a relationship

According to We Are Social, There are now 2.3 billion active users on social media platforms. The rise of social media has meant that brands and businesses can engage with their audiences in new, direct ways that simply weren’t possible before.

If you know a lot of your target audience follow a certain influencer, getting them to talk about your brand will help get your message out to the relevant people. Use social media to establish a relationship with those hard-to-reach influencers you really want to work with – comment on their posts and engage with them. By doing so, a relationship will hopefully blossom and they’ll become an integral part of spreading your brand’s key messages.

2. Get trending

Has a big story that is relevant to your industry or product just broken in the news? Start a conversation using the relevant hashtags, or answer questions being asked by those already using them.

This is a great way of gaining attention and expressing authority in your field. When ‘newsjacking’ like this, make sure you move fast – you don’t want to be the one still talking about an issue when everyone else has moved on.

3. Keep an eye on competitors

In order to ensure you’re at the forefront of what matters to your audience, you should track what your competitors are up to. Investigating what works for them will help you further understand your target audience and may just inspire your next big campaign.

4. Know your prospects

If you’re using social media for outreach, you’ll need to be sure that the editors, journalists or bloggers you contact are relevant to your campaign. Take a look through their newsfeed and see what they’ve been talking about. You could even gain their attention by mentioning an article they’ve shared that you also feel passionate about.

5. Find new ways to deliver the message

To get your message across and to gain maximum exposure, there are times when you may need to share the same content a number of times. Instead of copying and pasting the same posts, draft multiple variants that all loosely convey the same message. This way you’ll avoid repeating yourself and sounding robotic.

6. Make your information visual

Kissmetrics reports that content with relevant images will get 94 percent more views than content without. Most people now use social media while on the move and using visuals will help make your content easier to consume at a glance. If you want to receive more social shares, it’s important to make sure you’re providing visual assets.

7. Look who’s talking

It’s vital to ensure you respond to those who are already talking about you. A simple ‘like’ or retweet will go far in showing your appreciation. Remember, it’s always better for people to hear positive comments about your brand from others, instead of you shouting about yourself.

8. Take the good with the bad

As social media tends to be an open and honest forum, expect to receive a few negative comments and remarks from time to time. What’s important is how you deal with these comments – respond in a timely manner and try to rectify any issues. People will appreciate the response.

9. Be consistent

Regardless of which social channels you choose to use, you need to remain consistent throughout. Your social posts should complement your brand messaging; consistency will help to reinforce your overall persona and reputation. Although it is important to maintain some sense of uniformity, don’t fall into the trap of repeating the same message verbatim across your channels as this will come across as lazy and won’t engage your audience.

10. Analyse your results

If you don’t check how your social posts are performing, how will you know how to improve? Use tools to analyse who is sharing your content, on what platform and at what time. You can then optimise your future efforts using this new-found knowledge.

Social media is the key to your success

Texas Tech University reported that brands that have an active social media presence tend to have more loyal customers than those that don’t. By using social media to your advantage and by understanding how to play the game correctly, your PR campaigns will be at their most effective.

Lonn Landis is a studio manager at the PR and creative agency Peppermint Soda. Find out more about how to utilise social media within your marketing efforts with their latest guide.