In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Durrell Communications is featured as one of the Top PR Agencies in Canada. Check out their profile!
A public relations (PR) agency is led by a team of communications experts who are responsible for the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its audience. Public relations work entails a broad range of tactful communications efforts to amplify the public’s awareness of a business as well as its values, goals, and objectives. PR professionals target a company’s stakeholders and develop strategic communications plans to develop a positive brand reputation and build connections.
How Do PR Firms Help with Digital Marketing?
PR professionals are responsible for the regular management of an organization’s many unique audiences. To reach these audiences, PR agencies must offer a variety of services to engage stakeholders across various platforms through the development of paid, earned, shared, and owned media.
PR agencies typically provide the following services:
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Media Relations
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Corporate Communications and Public Relations
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Social Media Development
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Media Training
Media Relations
Media relations are key in ensuring a business or organization can successfully address and engage its target audience. Media relations include the development of a media strategy that prioritizes an organization’s goals. A PR agency develops this strategy using their understanding of local, national, and global media while also considering the appropriate type and timeline of coverage for the company at hand.
Media relations function differently than paid advertising or media and depend on earned media. The goal is to get newsworthy and high-value information about a company in front of the public eye through media coverage. Media outreach services include pitch writing, press releases, story ideas, interview opportunities, influencer relations, news conferences, and more.
Corporate Communications and Public Relations
PR agencies can also provide corporate communications and public relations. This begins with a curated brand strategy which is used to develop and emphasize the components of an organization’s brand with which audiences can identify. The brand strategy includes the development of an organization’s key themes and messages as well as the tactics and strategies a PR agency will use to convey these ideas to the public.
Reputation management is a gradual process that builds and evolves. Thus, PR agencies will continually monitor and evaluate communications strategies to ensure an organization is maintaining a positive reputation through various channels.
Despite this meticulous upkeep, a crisis can always occur, jeopardizing an organization’s reputation. For this reason, corporate communications can also encompass crisis management services where PR agencies guide organizations through appropriate and effective crisis communication strategies before, during, and after a crisis has occurred.
Social Media Development
In both reputation management and brand strategy, a successful social media presence is important. As the digital sphere is increasingly the most effective and direct form of communication to reach target audiences, PR agencies typically offer a wide range of social media services.
Social media development from a PR perspective will consist of a targeted social media strategy including key social goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and metrics for success. Within this social media strategy, PR agencies may also offer monitoring services across an organization’s social channels to keep a close eye on social analytics, measure success and identify areas for improvement. Other social media services can include content calendar creation, social media engagement, influencer marketing, content curation, and graphic design.
By developing a key social media strategy and amplifying an organization’s voice across social channels, PR agencies have the unique opportunity to engage directly with the public on their clients’ behalf. This allows further development of a positive reputation and offers another means of communication between an organization and its audience. A successful social media strategy also provides the opportunity for a business to grow its market, reaching and engaging with new audiences. Overall, an effective social media strategy is crucial in today’s digital world.
Media Training
Media training is another service that many PR agencies offer and is an important part of managing strategic communications. Organizations may opt for media training to ensure they are tactfully producing messages in their brand voice that are consistent with their key messages. If individuals within an organization are regularly appearing in front of the media, media training from a PR agency should be a key component of their communications plan.
Media training is an opportunity to better understand trends within an industry and tailor communications to target audiences. Media training from PR agencies will shed light on best practices for speaking to the media, how to effectively craft brand narratives and how to get messages across concisely.
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Public Relations Services Boost Your Marketing Strategy
Public relations agencies have the unique opportunity to cultivate deeper relationships with an organization’s audience through a variety of communications channels and strategies. When an organization hires a public relations agency to help them fulfill its objectives it can expect expert advice that will strengthen its reputation.