“Have you made resolutions this year?” This question seems to have been a part of just about every conversation between returning office workers since the start of the month and is often met by enthusiastically reciting a list of life improvements – or a blank look.
However, rather than giving up booze for January, resolving to go to the gym more or taking up knitting, why not make some solid PR resolutions instead – your reputation management in 2015 will thank you for it.
1. Know your audience. Like never before this is the time to really get to know your audience, to live and breathe the desires and needs of your clients and to unleash all your creativity and intuition when it comes to reaching them. An increase in competition in the sector, as well as new trends for organic and inbound marketing mean that you can’t just throw PR at the wall and hope it sticks any more.
2. Do more. For most of us the lesson has now been learned that quality outshines quantity every time when it comes to marketing. However, that doesn’t mean that you should spend 2015 making do with a tweet a week and the odd blog. Resolve to make this the year that you tweet/post/Vine and blog more, perhaps even join a new platform – you’ll find the interest that you generate and the conversations that you start will deliver a great big kick to your online profile.
3. Look out for the next big thing. You know how digital marketing and social media works by now – those who can create or spot a trend are those who win the most exposure. Don’t sit back and wait to see how you could benefit from trending topics, actively get out there and find ways to give your brand the kind of profile it needs using fast moving social media activity as the spring board. You might even want to consider creating your own viral around a key 2015 event (here are a few to look out for: general election, royal baby, Rugby World Cup, the new Star Wars movie).
4. Focus on strategy. Review the strategies that you’ve had in place in the past and identify elements that haven’t been successful but that are still filtering through into your current work practices. Be ruthless when it comes to binning old ideas that just don’t produce results and instead create a strategy that incorporates cutting edge ideas, in depth audience knowledge and has defined targets and goals for the year ahead.
5. Celebrate your successes. All too often we fail to make the most of successes and achievements, whether that’s new work won, awards received or something extra curricular, such as employees taking part in pro bono or fundraising. 2015 is the year for humanising your business voice and there is no better way to do this than with smiling faces and congratulations all round. Resolve to give your brand a human face in 2015.
6. Don’t ignore your website. It doesn’t matter how good your PR strategy is, if you have a non-responsive, boring website then you’re simply wasting all that effort. We all now acknowledge that the website is often the first port of call for a potential client, or at least a resource for researching a potential new relationship, so make yours part of your PR strategy and ensure that it works.
