In the past decade, the online world has begun to progressively mimic a battlefield, with millions of companies all vying for the top spots in search results.
Prior to 2012, the websites that ranked highest in the search results were often those that were irrelevant to your search criteria and obtained their top spot through ‘cheeky’ webspam tactics such as keyword stuffing and hidden back links.
Whether to hire an in-house public relations/marketing officer or to use an external consultancy is a question a lot of organisations face, particularly small and medium sized businesses, not-for-profit and other organisations that have restrictive operating budgets.
There are pros and cons to both options but overall, particularly in a situation where you are choosing between having just one PR person on staff or using an external agency it is more cost-effective to use an agency.
With more than 800 million Facebook users worldwide and a further 10,000 Australians signing up everyday, it is no wonder that social media has been a ‘hot topic’ in the last couple of years.
With the vast number of social media sites out there like Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+, navigating your way through the social media maze and keeping ‘on top’ of the latest trends can be a difficult task.
Video is one of the most powerful communication mediums and has continued to grow in popularity over the past two decades.
With the introduction of the Internet and now social media, video over the last ten years – and particularly in the last few – has become the single most-utilised method to gather information. In fact, according to a recent study, video now accounts for HALF of all web traffic, making it the most popular form of communication online.
Public Relations and marketing are often identified as the first port of call for the budget cutting razor gangs that an economic crisis necessitates, but this could in fact be the worst decision you could make.
With the country in the grips of an economic crisis that could slip into a recession, most companies are quite rightly taking a long hard look at their bottom line, but public relations budgets should be protected and expanded, not slashed.
What are your goals and objectives? What is your point of difference? What makes you different from your competitor? What is it you want to achieve from your communication? Think specifically about this from the point of view of reputation and relationships.
Who is it that you want to reach? Where are they? Why them? It helps to be specific here, break your customers or clients up into key groups. You need to identify basic demographic information such as how old they are, what they do, and how much they make, but also what they enjoy, what they read or watch and how they prefer you communicate with them?
Like any industry, there is a broad range of public relations assistance out there but if you don’t know what to look for, you might not get what you need.
The usual rule of research applies here. Ask prospective consultants about their experience and training, professional memberships such as being a member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia, and the types of companies and clients they represent.
