Public relations is an ever-evolving profession. Technology and social media advances continue to move professionals further into the future with the access to new apps, platforms and other tools that accelerate the way PR pros do their job. Staying up-to-speed on these advances is one way PR pros can remain relevant.
In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we look at how far public relations has come over the last decade and put the spotlight on a number of new social media advances, platforms and measurement tools that continue to launch the profession forward.
How the PR Industry of Yesteryear Compares With Today (Ragan’s PR Daily)
The public relations profession continues to evolve by leaps and bounds. Practitioners have moved from faxing pitches to tweeting about release and using new platforms like individual newsrooms. Today’s PR Daily infographic by Michael Sebastian takes us on a tour of technological advances and social nuances that ultimately piece together a story of “PR Then and Now.”
Related: Professional Competency: Keeping Up with the Future (PRSAY)
Pinterest Launches New Data Analytic Tool For Businesses As It Prepares To Monetize (TechCrunch)
Public relations professionals are always looking for measurement tools that offer an accurate explanation and justification of the work they spend endless hours doing. Wouldn’t it be nice if every single social media platform that PR pros use offered effective and efficient measurement? A number of platforms have made the effort to oblige and this week Pinterest announced that the platform will begin rolling out Pinterest Web Analytics. With this new tool, businesses will be able to see how many visitors are being referred to the business Web site via a pinned image. Pinterest Analytics are available free for businesses with a verified Web site. I’m sure the chatter will increase as PR pros begin to navigate this new tool.
How Search Is Evolving — Finally! — Beyond Caveman Queries (AllThingsD)
When public relations professionals post a blog for a client, send out a press release or secure a media placement, it’s important to both the PR professional and said client that published collateral come up in a simple search and not get buried because the wrong keyword was used. Google search executive Amit Singhal, in a recent interview, explains that “for years, online search has trained [Internet users] to speak its odd and stilted language.” We’ve all be taught to isolate keyword using quotation marks or start each search from scratch as to not to confuse the search engine. The big execs on companies like Google and Bing are trying to make search more conversational, meaning that search will understand certain nuances of the English language, like pronouns, for example, which refer back to its original noun. While this idea seems simple, creating it will take work in artificial intelligence and the world outside of computers. The hope is that eventually the two will reach a middle ground where users and search engines begin understand one another.
Must-Have Tools to Write the Perfect Press Release (EverythingPR)
EverythingPR’s Mihaela Lica Butler discusses great tools that public relations professionals who arm themselves with in order to ensure great exposure for their releases. Lica Butler offers tools that help analyze headlines, offer keyword analysis and support your release via social media. Here are a few of Lica Butler’s suggestions:
- Be mindful of your release title. A good tool to use is the headline analyzer by the Advanced Marketing Institute.
- Choose the right keyword for market research, not necessarily SEO purposes. SEMrush is a tool that offers you insight into what keywords your competitors might be using.
- For a company’s bigger announcements, it may be wise to choose a professional PR platform like PitchEngine. This platform is not free, but if you’re short on time and want your release to reach a wider audience PitchEngine offers affordable plans.
Can the MyPRGenie App Help Connect PR Pros to the Media? (PRNewser)
Public relations professionals create content always keeping their target audience in mind but sometimes getting your content into the right hands can be challenging. PRNewser’s Patrick Coffee offers one suggestion that may get your content to the right people – a marketing platform called MyPRGenie. According to the company’s press release, this platform offers PR professionals access to contacts and data that sales people have had access to for years. MyPRGenie CEO Miranda Tan offers insight on the product and discusses how the platform came to be.
Nicole Castro is the public relations associate at the Public Relations Society of America.
