We’ve written quite a bit in this blog about the importance of PR metrics in monitoring and implementing successful PR.
However, while numbers and measurements surely have their place in your PR management, there are “soft,” non-numerical indicators that are worth looking at, too.
These are signs and symptoms that help you see whether your PR is going the right way.
Below, we offer you the…
7 Signs You Could Be Doing Better in PR
1. When you send out a press release or media pitch, your phone doesn’t ring.
Is there anything worse than not getting any reaction at all to your press releases or pitches? If this happens all the time, take a close look at:
- how newsworthy your pitches are
- the effectiveness of your press releases and media pitches
- the quality of your media list
2. Your interview skills are rusty.
When was the last time you were interviewed by a journalist or blogger in your industry? Can’t remember. Yeah, it’s been too long. If your pitches aren’t effective, it’s no wonder your coverage has been sparse and your media skills have suffered.
Don’t wait for interview opportunities. Always have your key messages burned into your memory. Practice in front of the mirror, or with employees. Use your “sound bites” at meetings or conferences. You never know when the next PR opportunity will come.
3. You don’t have a media list, or it hasn’t been updated in the last month.
With media organizations downsizing, it’s easy for your media list to get old and stale. Make sure the contact information in your media list is updated.
Another bad sign is if your media list includes only journalists in traditional media — radio, TV, newspapers and magazines — and don’t include bloggers, podcasters and vloggers.
Another thing to watch out for is a media list that does not include your contact’s social media profiles, such as Twitter handle, LinkedIn page, Facebook page, and personal website.
4. You don’t know what’s being said about your company, product, or your competitors.
There’s no excuse for you not to know what’s being said about your business and your competitors. It’s easy enough to stay on top of these things: Sign up for a Google alert for your company name, product name, and names of executives (and those of your competitors). Or populate your RSS reader with search results of these keywords.
5. Key journalists in your industry keep writing about your competitors (and not you).
If your company or product is new in the market, this is understandable. But if you’ve been around at least a couple of years, journalists who regularly cover your industry, especially local media, should recognize you by now.
If you keep thinking that you are the “best kept secret” in your industry, brainstorm some newsworthy activities or pitches you can make, and send them out ASAP. Building relationships take time, and the time to start is now.
6. You still don’t have a social media PR plan.
You can no longer ignore social media. It is here and it’s here to stay. It may seem like additional work for you, but in truth it’s easy to integrate social media into your traditional PR plan.
Need help? Download this complimentary social media PR guide.
7. You respond defensively to negative PR and customer complaints.
Social media has made it easy for everyone, including disgruntled customers, to publish their views on your product. If you react to negative publicity by being defensive — or worse, hostile — then you’re doing your image more harm.
Monitor what’s being said about you, so you can respond to complaints in a timely fashion. Take the discussion into a more private medium, such as email. And resolve the issue as quickly as you can.
As an example, a client had an unhappy customer who didn’t receive a product in the timeframe promised. The customer broadcasted a complaint over Twitter. By acknowledging the customer’s complaint quickly and looking into the situation, our client showed the public that they cared about their customers and are committed to doing right by them. We didn’t have to give anything more than an apology and making sure the package was indeed on its way, and the promised product arrived a few days later.
This is how negative PR becomes positive PR, because that same complaining customer has become one of our client’s biggest fans, constantly re-tweeting our client, posting photos on the client’s Facebook wall and singing their praises publicly.
Any More?
What other warning signs of failing PR have you seen out there? What’s one thing you could you be doing better?
Share them below, or let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
Image by martoppel
Elena is founder of a technology PR agency that works with startups to billion-dollar companies. She is passionate about helping marketers and small business owners with practical publicity strategies.
Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe now and get new posts either via RSS feed or your email. Please click on the RSS button below or type your primary email address below and click "Subscribe."
And more 
Good suggestion, All of you tips are very informative and will be a great help for newer blogger.Thank you for finding the time to create such an interesting and idea inspiring blog – I will back to visit very soon.
You post really highlights the issues that bloggers have. If one implements the points you mention, they are sure to see success!
Planning, research, evaluation and survey are he important factor of any business venture. Great piece of advice. Thank you
The key is to look really closely at the content you are putting into your press release. As you say it has to be newsworthy – what you want to say may not be relevant to readers or viewers. Put yourself in the readers’ shoes and really think what they are likely to be interested in – will what you are announcing make them richer, or pose a threat to their job or business, or create an opportunity they didn’t have before? If not, why do you expect them to be interested? Then of course get some really good media training to ensure you are ready to give a great interview!
Regarding no. 14, I know a number of big banks and financial institutions (both American and British) where they are so keen to control the media environment that they won’t agree to an interview at all unless they get sight of the quotes the reporter wants to use. A lot of journalists don’t like this but others have no problem as they want to ensure they have got it right. We tell our media training clients that a good compromise is to politely request (rather than demand) a quick look at the quotes before they go in ‘to check I was as clear as I should have been’ – you may well find the reporter is willing to play ball for the sake of accuracy.
These are some really great tips. They are also great for inspiring public relations students like myself. I now know what to keep in mind when I start looking a job. I think the best piece of advise is knowing what people are saying out your company.
One thing to mention also is the importance of Twitter. Journos may not read all of their emails, but they do read every one of their mentions on Twitter
This blog post was quite different than the posts I’ve read in the past due to the fact that pointed out all of the problems that public relations companies may come across. One piece of advice that I found very helpful for future reference was that it’s so important to stay current and keep a positive reputation no matter what the circumstance. Also something that I took from the piece is that it’s important to stay in the know and keep up with the media. More often than not, especially where I’m from, you hear about a few top PR agencies and the rest seem to fade into the background. The smaller companies may not have as many luxuries as top companies, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get their name out in the media more than once a year. I found this piece to be very straight forward and to the point, because in the end, public relations specialists are supposed to be direct. I really enjoyed reading this post and feel that this is a blog post that is something you could keep on hand because it’s a good checklist for future practitioners to refer to when they feel like their company is getting a little stale.
I think that the problem is even more complex. Saw companies that are good when it comes to positively promoting themselves and maintaining the positive relations with media, but turn out to be totally arrogant and unprofessional when confronting the negative opinions / tricky questions / negative public relations at large. I think that there is a long way ahead of negative PR!