Brands, in an effort to get out a shareable tweet or a super-likeable post, are often caught in a daily trap of shallow engagement with its communities. Your stakeholders -- humans just like you and me -- want to be part of a movement, not part of a marketing moment.
That statement rang true to the hundreds of attendees at PR News’ Platinum PR Awards gala held Oct. 19 in NYC. That morsel of wisdom, shared by one of the award winners, was in great company with other bits of sound advice offered by communication leaders from corporations, nonprofits and agencies who took home their coveted prize.
PR News asked the honorees on stage to share the hot-button issues and ideas they and their teams are facing as communicators and brand representatives vying for the hearts and minds of customers in this Attention Economy.
Here are a handful of great ideas to jumpstart your PR efforts in the coming weeks:
- Bring back creativity: This requires opening yourself up to diverse points of view and coloring outside the lines to tell a memorable story.
- Collaborate and break down silos: internal politics and resistance to ideas from cross-department peers is the path to stagnation.
- When producing branded content, it’s about your reader not you.
- The more transparent you are (as a brand, as a person), the more successful you will be.
- Spotting trends early and often will position your organization, your department and you for leadership.
- Embrace face to face: nothing is more valuable than eye-to-eye contact, getting out of the office/your comfort zone when interacting with stakeholders.
- Empower others to tell your story: third party validation from customers trumps all.
- Personalize your pitches: but be sure you know whom you’re pitching to. That email I just received addressed to Gerald re Viagara was memorable – but in a bad way.
This year's Platinum PR and Agency Elite winners are clearly deploying the tactics above. Thanks to them and all of you for doing what you can to advance PR's role in the marketplace.
-- Diane Schwartz
Let's connect on Twitter: @dianeschwartz