What’s your story? If you don’t know, then it’s time to take a look at how public relations — both earned and owned — can help you get your message out in a compelling way.
Why Do You Need a Story?
Public relations can differ from purchased media like advertising in a significant way: You don’t always have control over the outcome. If you or your PR agency send out a press release, a media outlet can choose to use it as a basis for their own article, run it as you send it or completely ignore it.
That’s why it’s important to understand as much as possible the types of content media outlets seek. To stand out from the pack of press releases editors receive each day, you must have an authentic story. Why? Because stories tap into human emotion and get the attention of editors and their audience.
By crafting your organization’s news into a compelling story, you increase the chances that a media organization will either run your piece as is or choose to write their own piece. Persuading a key editor of a TV news program, newspaper, magazine, online publication or other media outlet to publish or broadcast your story is known as “earned” PR.
The Benefits of Earned PR
Earned PR, also known as earned media, gives you credibility. It’s not you saying how great your community is, it’s a news outlet that your target audience recognizes and trusts.
Organizations attempting to capitalize on earned PR frequently have a low degree of control over the process. PR often is all about relationships, which business owners and executives typically don’t interact with local and national media sources frequently enough to build. By working with an experienced marketing agency, however, you improve your odds of using earned media to your community’s advantage.
Times have changed since the days of mailing out a press release to a few select media outlets. Today, the choices for getting your message out are virtually limitless, but earned PR is more important than ever.
It used to be that people shared the buzz about businesses and brands with their friends and family. With the rise of social media, however, consumers now share that same information with thousands or even millions of others online.
And when it comes to purchasing, many of those people give a high degree of credence to reputable media outlets. In fact, 85 percent of consumers sometimes turn to reviews and articles from credible sources before they buy.
In some cases, owned PR can masquerade as earned PR. For instance, when you pay for placement of a positive article about your community, that’s owned PR even though the piece appears in a reputable publication. Although it’s increasingly difficult for consumers to tell the difference these days, it’s safest to assume that your target audiences will know if a review or article is biased in your favor.
What Role Does Owned PR Play?
Your community has much more control over its owned PR, which includes information you post on your website, on social media, in newsletters and in brochures. For better or worse, though, that control often ends with posting the content.
In the digital age, content can go viral seemingly in the blink of an eye — and the word quickly spreading can have a positive or negative effect on your community. Once you’ve posted information, staying in control of the resulting conversation is much more difficult.
Social media platforms — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others — allow you to communicate directly with your target audiences, including prospective residents, adult children and members of your greater community. But to ensure that your owned PR has its desired effect, you must target well, post useful content and follow up in a responsive manner to user input. Failing at any step can result in your owned PR hurting more than it helps.
Earned vs. Owned Media: Blurred Lines
Although it’s still clear in many cases what constitutes earned and owned PR, social media is blurring the lines. Posting content to your owned PR platforms — your website, social media pages, sponsored content and others — isn’t the end of the story.
The true goal of your owned PR is conversion to earned PR — getting the right people talking positively about your community online. That earned PR can manifest in the form of Twitter retweets, shared links on Facebook and positive feedback on Yelp and other review sites.
Whether you start at the earned or owned end of the spectrum, you’ll need to tell a compelling story about your community — and make sure your target audiences see it.
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