This demand seems obvious in conditions of huge online flow of self-generated low-quality content, crisis of the press and journalistic profession, and in the fast-growing online content sharing. I found an article on Forbes.com, where the US entrepreneur Dan Greenberg said that PR guys have to focus on creating content that will engange the audience to share it.
Greenberg said, “News releases will have more attention-grabbing or controversial headlines to drive more retweets. We’ll see more pitches that seek to seed a contrarian view or spark controversy, both of which will have a better chance of being shared than straight news. There will be more aggressive outreach to influencers on Twitter to ask them to tweet about news, and more strategies to provide incentives to tweet or post to Facebook”.
The popular blog on social media Mashable, published Leyl Master Black’s insights. She’s from Sparkpr, one of the world’s top independent PR agencies. She shared her thoughts about a few trends to watch in the coming year: “The need for content has never been greater. But with staffing levels still low, there will be even more opportunities in the coming year for company execs to contribute their own thought leadership pieces and educational articles to prominent publications. Also we can expect to see more corporate blogging in 2011, which could be filled mainly by freelancing writers”.
How businesses in Ukraine can deal with such digitalized PR challenges? “PR doesn’t have to cost you thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours to achieve. In fact, with a few well-ingrained, PR-attracting habits, you can easily become a virtual PR magnet”, wrote in her recent blog entry Elena Verlee, a successful US entrepreneur. Her advice for 2011 to businessmen is to get more PR via the following practical measures, like:
- “You need really get to know the people working in media”
- “Act like an expert — because you are”
- “Look out for the newsy angle of your business to pitch your news regularly, creating a constant stream of media-sexy stories”
Truly saying, Elena’s suggestions are well-known. But many of Ukrainian top-executives do not actually care about their participation in PR. They put it onto the shoulders of the PR manager of the firm who is only the mediator, in fact. As for me, journalists anywhere (in Ukraine or globally) love to know news right from the source. Even busy CEOs can find a time to meet key editors to let them know more about business environment.
From the point of view of the Ukrainian specific business culture, any PR global suggestions can be not useful in Ukraine. The under-carpet deals, questionable lobbying, black accounting still leaves not too much space for civilized corporate PR in partnership with the press and society, as well as for effective marketing.
Viktor Kovalenko is a public relations and communications professional. You can read his blog entries at http://viktorkovalenko.blogspot.com/
