Public Relations for Beginners: A Guide to PR

Everybody knows that some kind of PR outreach is a must, but in a world of limitless choice it’s perfectly understandable if you’re stuck at “Where do I start?”

There are tons of PR techniques for increasing your reach. Some are more effective than others, but the goal is always the same — managing impressions of your brand with the help of media partners.

Many of those charged with the task of spreading the word about something follow a familiar path. A social media blitz, the most massive email marketing campaign this world has ever seen, killer paid ad campaigns. Sound familiar? But, too often, the method that can outperform all of those is the one that many are afraid to try — connecting with the right audience with a powerful media-based public relations strategy.

Forget about being the next in line to fill social media profiles and search results full of more unwanted ads and see what you can accomplish by going directly to established media platforms that can deliver just the audience you’re looking for.

Instead, dive into the world of public relations with a crash course on PR basics for business owners and marketers, along with a look at the benefits the right PR plan can have on your business.

Public relations 101: What is PR
What good PR should do for you
Getting started in public relations - beginner’s guide
Media relations guidelines - do’s & don’ts

Public relations 101: What is PR

Public relations is the process of establishing strategic communication relationships across different media channels in order to promote the positive perception of your company with the relevant audiences and get additional coverage from those channels.

An established PR strategy defines every way in which a company positions itself on the global stage and communicates with all the stakeholders - your current and prospective customers, journalists, influencers and anyone else who’s important to your organization.

Sound a lot like branding or marketing? Yes, there is a lot of crossover between these terms but there’s more to it. While branding puts the main emphasis on how your business “looks & feels” (its visual identity, marketing materials, UX/UI designs, etc.) and marketing is selling a product, PR focuses purely on impressions and perceptions. It also goes a step further and actively engages media in an attempt to reach the audiences that follow various media channels.

In the words of Kirk Hazlett, a Fellow at the Public Relations Society of America:

PR is a dating service. PR introduces you or your product or service to those publics that are most likely to be interested. If it’s a good match, a relationship develops. Public relations is focusing on your customer, current or potential, and knowing what you want him or her to know or do as a result of the information you have provided.

What good PR should do for you

While all public relations efforts are dedicated to creating and supporting the positive image of your company, there are many additional objectives you can pursue with a well-developed PR strategy.

Among all the benefits a good PR plan can bring to your business, there are certain key functions of public relations you need to be aware of. In particular, a strong public relations strategy should help you to:

learn and react to a particular audience’s opinion about your brand
actively implement strategies that improve your brand image
seek and maintain positive relationships with investors, journalists, clients, etc.
manage your online presence and the appearance of your business
promote your company across various media channels
mitigate the impact of a crisis on your brand’s reputation

As you can see, PR can be a flexible term, and it covers a lot of bases. The important takeaway here is that it is about the general management of how you are perceived and the ability to actively engage with those in a position to improve that perception.

Getting started in public relations - beginner’s guide

Public relations teams serve many different purposes and there are various types of PR activities, each addressing its own specific goals. These, in a way, are the checkpoints for your public relations roadmap, the most important elements of the basic PR plan you need to keep in mind while you’re trying to figure out how to do digital PR.

Let’s look into each of them one by one, providing a clear overview of each aspect of public relations, its purpose, and some of the ways it could be implemented into a basic PR plan.

Media relations

Chances are, this is exactly what you’re thinking about when hearing the term “public relations”. And yet, media relations management is just one of the main stepping stones on your way towards a proper PR strategy.

Here, your main goal is to build positive relations with bloggers, journalists and influencers in order to get yourself media coverage for free (or close enough to it). It’s always good to have someone who speaks to large audiences on your behalf, and that’s exactly what media relations are all about.

In the digital era, establishing and maintaining media relations for PR purposes mainly involves writing press releases and other communications, pitching the media, organizing and participating in different interviews, attending special events, etc.

Pro tip: Getting mainstream coverage is a lot more difficult than you think it is. Instead of shooting for the biggest media platform you can find, think about reaching out to the one most likely to be interested in your message. In an age when everything ends up online anyway, there’s nothing wrong with smaller, local platforms.

Further reading & resources on media relations management:

Employee relations

When you’re learning how to do digital PR, it’s easy to fall into the novice error and focus on the clients and the clients alone. In reality, public relations are much more complicated than that. For starters, you need to make sure that your PR plan never omits your own employees, both current and the potential ones.

Think of it as internal PR.

First of all, your very own staff might be the strongest team of brand ambassadors you’ll ever need. At the same time, an unhappy employee is very likely to spread the harshest criticism.

That’s why it’s crucial for the companies to invest in employer branding and internal PR & communications to ensure your team members feel appreciated, heard, and respected.

Pro tip: Remember that employer branding isn’t just about interacting with potential employees. Lots of people who have no plans to ever work for you, including many in the media and other opinion-influencing positions, will see your outreach too. Remember that more than just your target market is paying attention.

Community management

Another important audience to keep in mind is your local community. After all, if you own an offline business, you’d most probably like to have a community spirit around it. That’s exactly what this type of PR is all about.

With community management, you ensure to communicate where your business stands on some of the crucial local issues, how it is perceived by the neighbors, whether it makes a social commitment or not. In the long run, investing in positive community relations can provide you with new loyal brand ambassadors, a strong boost in ethical reputation for your company, more recruits in the future, and more.

Here, it’s not enough to say what your company’s behind - you need to really show it. Make sure you participate in local events sharing your expertise, time or at least donating some profits towards a worthy cause.

Highlight your good deeds online (having ongoing relations with the media from the previous point wouldn’t hurt here as well). Organize community events, and don’t be afraid to stand up for your ideas. You’ll be sure to get your share of supporters in no time!

Pro tip: Keep an eye on the calendar of local events and make taking part where you can a priority. The cost / benefit calculation is often very favorable in terms of what you can get out of being an active member of your local community.

Social & corporate responsibility

Corporate and social responsibility (CSR) of a brand is among the first things everyone searches for in digital PR. While this form of public relations is very similar to community management, here a focus on ethics and philanthropy demonstrates your commitment to a cause.

Do you have a cause connected to your business? Great, as long as it’s aligned with your target audience’s values.

Has your business been associated with unethical business practices and poor employee culture? Not only are these problems you need to fix just because it’s the right thing to do, but you’ve also handed your competition a hammer to hit you with.

On the other hand, did you host a fundraiser for a charity? Donate something to a local event? Don’t forget to write about it anywhere you can or, better yet, get someone else to write about you.

Emphasize the good and try to minimize the damage of the bad via social sharing and positive reinforcement.

Pro tip: You might be aware of just how important CSR has become to a growing segment of consumers. Don’t let this fly under your radar — if you don’t have content on the topic of your brand’s involvement with CSR, make it one of your top priorities.

Further reading & resources on CSR:

Crisis management

Life happens, and that means unforeseen problems will show up in your office one day. When a crisis hits and things are moving at the speed of the internet, managing and, if needed, correcting the impressions that are created is hard.

That’s when you need a good PR specialist right there in the eye of the storm ready to back your business up with some bulletproof crisis management techniques, contacts to help get your message out in a hurry and the ability to steer the conversation in the direction you want.

While there’s no way to be prepared for everything that gets thrown at you, the point is that your PR team is appointed as the go-to leaders in dealing with managing a crisis. When the problem hits and your reputation is on the line, there’s no time for meetings to decide who’s going to be in charge of your response — your PR should be ready to go to work in difficult circumstances at a moment’s notice.

Pro tip: Too often, crisis management is one of those things that gets delayed or forgotten about until there’s a crisis. Don’t get caught off-guard — start working on a “What if?” plan, so you have something to work with immediately when someone hits the panic button.

Further reading & resources on crisis management:

Marketing & communications

It’s pretty easy to forget about other important forms of communication while you’re searching for the most effective ways to do digital PR, like traditional marketing. Chances are, your business is already engaged in numerous marketing campaigns, so it’s your job to make sure those are well-managed as well.

When talking about public relations, a particularly essential aspect of marketing is social media. In a way, this is the easiest way for you to talk directly to all the stakeholders. So make sure to apply each of the basic PR plan principles discussed above to your SM strategy as well.

Reply to comments and reviews (especially the negative ones), engage in online social movements and challenges, collaborate with other brands from your area to improve community relations, and don’t be afraid to try new things!

Every touchpoint where your brand gets a chance for exposure is another opportunity to shape opinions on what you’re all about.
But most importantly, make sure your marketing and PR teams are on the same page. Pulling in opposite directions will get you nowhere.

Pro tip: Typically, marketing and PR aren’t handled by the same staff. Much will depend on the setup of your organization but one thing is true no matter what — some kind of alignment between these two spokes of the same wheel is a must. Working completely independently will result in confusing messaging and confused consumers.

Further reading & resources on marketing:

Media relations guidelines - do’s & don’ts

Let’s finish with some takeaways on both the positive and negative sides. Here are 5 Do’s and 5 Don’ts to keep in mind, all focused on the media relations aspect of PR.

Top 5 do’s

✅ DO create a contact list full of journalists and others in the media who are somehow aligned with your message in a way that makes them more likely to be interested. This means cultivating contacts that cover your industry, have recently written about something very similar, are in the same geographic location, work for a platform that’s focused on the same field, etc. Just because someone has a huge audience or you happen to like them personally or whatever doesn’t mean they're a good match for whatever you have to share.

✅ DO make your pitch focused on what’s in it for them. It’s obvious that you’re trying to get some kind of media coverage but how will your media contact benefit from this? Look at the pitch from their perspective and think of their interests.

✅ DO follow up on your initial pitch. This means having a tool that gives you some analytical insights into which recipients opened your mail, clicked on a link, etc. Take advantage of these signs of interest with a follow-up message that moves the conversation forward.

✅ DO consider using ready templates for your pitch if you’re just starting out or not confident about your writing skills. Templates make it easy to simply add the relevant details and still sound professional. Careful - you still need some personalization for every pitch (more on this in a second).

✅ DO be patient after your pitch is sent. Your audience isn’t nearly as excited about your PR campaign as you are and need more time to get around to it and consider their response. It’s hard to specify the amount of time you should wait, but it’s almost certainly a bit longer than the amount of time you want to wait before following up.

Top 5 don’ts

⛔ DON’T assume that everyone (or anyone…) will be interested in your message and instantly jump at the chance to write about you. The truth is that gaining media coverage is hard and results from the careful cultivation of both your contacts and the way you make your pitch. Of course, we want you to be optimistic but also realistic about this aspect of PR.

⛔ DON’T send the same pitch to everyone. Who wants to get a perfect copy of the same thing that everyone else got? Make it clear that you’ve spent some time getting to know someone and the work they’ve done with references to past contacts, their recent posts, etc.

⛔ DON’T reach out to a particular journalist more than three times in a single campaign. The first pitch, a follow-up and a final message regretting that you couldn’t connect are enough. Don’t bombard anyone with repeated emails on the same topic.

⛔ DON’T confuse the message you’re trying to spread with something that is truly newsworthy. Journalists know what meets this definition and if you repeatedly fail to gain interest in a media pitch, this is likely the explanation for why.

⛔ DON’T make media contacts search for additional information about you, your brand, etc. Make background info and anything else they might need easily available to them so the entire task of covering you is easier. Online newsrooms are especially helpful here.

Ready to get started in PR?

Getting started in PR isn’t as hard as you might think. You don’t have to sit down for an interview with a famous media outlet or regularly appear on network television to engage in PR. As you can see from our list, there are many, smaller ways to take care of your public image and the way your brand or company is seen.

It’s likely that you’re already involved in at least one thing on our list to some degree, so expanding your PR work is simply a matter of growing into new roles and turning to new opportunities to manage the way the public perceives you.

If you’re doing anything to make that perception as favorable as possible, you’re already active in PR so there’s no need to think of yourself as a beginner. Use the experience you’ve gained so far for insights into what area you can move to next in your quest to influence the impression your brand makes on everyone who interacts with you.

Cover photo by Dayne Topkin