R Public Relations Firm
5 Common Media Missteps and PR Tips to Help You Avoid Them
It happens to the best of us. Even the most seasoned PR professionals can stumble into some scary media missteps. And the consequences can leave brands scrambling to recover. To help keep your message clear and your reputation intact, here’s a look at the five most common media mistakes PR pros encounter—and the PR tips you need to avoid them.
1. Ignoring Your Audience’s Interests
The Mistake: Crafting a message solely from the company’s perspective rather than focusing on what the audience cares about will land you in hot water every time. When brands speak to the audience instead of connecting with them, the message often misses the mark, resulting in disengagement.
PR Tip: Audience research should be the foundation of any PR campaign. Use tools like Google Analytics or audience surveys to gain insight into demographics, preferences, and needs. Build your messaging around what the audience values, not just what the brand wants to say. For instance, a brand launch may seem important internally, but it could fall flat if it doesn’t address why customers should care.
Ultimately, you want to engage your audience with authentic and meaningful content and messaging to boost your visibility and build brand loyalty.
2. Sending Out Impersonal Pitches
The Mistake: One-size-fits-all pitching is the kiss of death in PR. Generic pitches lack the personalized touch that journalists and editors expect, which can hurt both the immediate pitch and long-term relationships with media professionals.
PR Tip: Research each journalist’s beat and previous articles to understand their interests and angle your pitch accordingly. Use the first line of your email to demonstrate this knowledge and highlight why your story fits their current coverage. This thoughtful approach stands out in an inbox of impersonal pitches and builds respect and trust over time.
3. Skipping Crisis Management Preparation
The Mistake: Hoping a crisis won’t happen isn’t a strategy. Brands that lack a crisis communication plan often face added chaos and confusion when an issue does arise, leading to poor handling and even brand damage.
PR Tip: Proactively build a crisis management plan. Identify potential risks, designate a spokesperson, and prepare key messages that align with the brand’s values. Assign roles within the PR team so everyone knows their responsibilities, ensuring swift and unified responses. Consider conducting regular media training for the designated spokesperson to keep them prepared for high-stakes situations.
4. Missteps in Timing
The Mistake: Timing can make or break PR pitches and campaigns. Launching an announcement on a holiday weekend or during a significant event can bury even the best stories, while missing timely opportunities can cost your company brand visibility.
PR Tip: Be strategic and pay attention to the calendar. If you plan campaigns to coincide with relevant holidays, seasons, or trending topics, you can maximize visibility. Also, consider investing in media monitoring tools to keep tabs on what’s happening in your industry, allowing you to jump on relevant moments and trends to gain traction with your audience.
5. Failing to Track and Measure Results
The Mistake: Without tracking metrics and results, PR professionals miss insights on campaign performance. That means it is going to be more challenging to understand what resonates with the audience and improve future efforts.
PR Tip: Begin every campaign with clear, measurable goals, whether that’s earned media hits, social engagement, or website traffic. Use tracking tools to analyze campaign performance and adapt based on the results. This data-driven approach helps refine current strategies and builds credibility with clients by showing the impact of your efforts.
The PR landscape may be filled with potential pitfalls, but with the right strategies, you can steer clear of these common mistakes. Focusing on key basics like timing and personalization can keep your PR efforts effective and your brand’s message clear. Mistakes happen, but these PR tips can help you navigate media challenges with confidence.
For expert PR tips tailored to your business, schedule a discovery call with RPR today.
How to Use Multimedia Content in PR
The use of multimedia in public relations (PR) is growing rapidly. Since digital strategies are on the rise, PR efforts are taking on new forms. In our ever-changing world of social media and AI, PR strategies need to be adaptable.
On average, people spend seven hours a day online. It’s no surprise that PR is going digital to keep up with the audiences who get their news and entertainment via social media. Explore how you can mix multimedia in your PR content.
Types of Content
Images
The use of images and infographics for your PR efforts can elevate your strategy. If you're trying to get a difficult concept across to your audience, a simple infographic might just solve that problem. In a digital world where almost everything is visual, images are essential for a PR campaign to stand out.
Videos
Platforms like TikTok and YouTube have become a primary source of entertainment for many. Since their conception, these platforms have housed viral content and elements of pop culture.
Now, video platforms function as search engines, providing searchers with in-depth tutorials or reviews of new products. Video has become so crucial to online news that a study done by the Reuters Institute found that short news videos were preferred by 66% of their sample, and longer video formats were preferred by about half of their sample. Creating video content for important announcements and thought leadership can be an easily digestible avenue for storytelling and engaging your audience.
Audio
The accessibility element of podcasts makes it an easy plug into your strategy. Podcasts are a great way to reach an audience that is short on time by giving them a quick snippet of your content. Podcasts are also a commonly reputable source, as 51% of new listeners find podcasts trustworthy, according to AdWeek.
Blogs
Written content is one form of multimedia that will never go out of style. Blogs can be used to promote thought leadership, drive traffic to a website, and establish trust with your audience. When creating blog posts, note how incorporating keywords can boost your SEO (search engine optimization) and increase your website ranking in search engines.
Interactive Content
Let’s not stop there. Take your PR strategy to the next level by incorporating interactive content. This could look like a video game that sums up your content, an interactive website, or a platform that directly interacts with your audience.
Best Practices
Be Authentic
If using multimedia in your strategy doesn’t make sense, don’t use it. Doing what makes sense for your client is the bottom line, so if making a YouTube channel or starting a podcast doesn’t align with the brand, choose another route.
Storytelling is Key
Building a compelling narrative is paramount to any PR strategy. When instilling multimedia in your PR strategy, keep in mind how it creates a larger story that supports your key messages.
Stay True to the Brand
When creating multimedia content for clients, keep brand elements in mind. If you’re creating a new brand asset for an organization, ensure all branding elements, like logo and brand colors, are represented correctly.
Keep Track
If a multimedia strategy works for a client, note it. Staying up to date with the results of multimedia content helps inform future strategies and allows you to create content confidently.
Multimedia content will change as social platforms advance and people’s media consumption shifts. An important aspect of PR to remember is to remain adaptable. In a modern world, it’s essential to adjust your strategy to fit the changing needs of your audience. The use of multimedia is just one way you can adapt and change your strategy for the better.
So You Think You Don’t Need a Crisis Communication Expert
Crises happen when you least expect them. When faced with a business crisis, you may be unsure what to do next or how to mitigate damages. Crisis communication experts help businesses overcome these moments of uncertainty and move forward.
What is Crisis Communications?
Crisis Communication is the strategic communication management of a significant event that threatens an organization’s reputation or operations. It involves the development of a comprehensive plan to address the crisis, communicate key messages, and manage the flow of information.
Crises vary in severity, and this will always affect the communication plan. Some crisis communication plans require multiple steps to alleviate the effects of a natural disaster or manage a business's reputation amid negative rumors.
Role of a Crisis Communication Expert
The role of a crisis communication expert is to maintain the reputation of a business through a crisis situation. The crisis communication expert will lead any key messaging for your organization to build trust with your audience and manage momentum after the crisis.
Hiring a crisis communication expert can bring a new perspective to your organization, allowing you to see your crisis from all angles. This avoids any biases and keeps your team aligned on the bottom line.
R Take on Celebrity Crisis Communications
Recently, our founder, Emily Reynolds Bergh, was featured in a Newsweek article discussing the controversy surrounding Chris Hemsworth’s feature of creator, MrBeast, on his YouTube channel.
The controversy started with a video posted by Hemsworth titled, “I Put MrBeast To The Test In The Gym,” in which he and MrBeast worked out with friends to see who could burn the most calories in 30 minutes.
This video led viewers to voice their concerns in the comments. The YouTuber holds the record for the highest number of subscribers on the platform, with a staggering 317 million subscribers as of late September. Although his content is viewed as rather charitable, he has recently been accused of staging his content and hiring a registered sex offender to work with his team. Videos of him using racial and homophobic slurs have also resurfaced amid these accusations.
So, where does this leave Hemsworth? Many PR experts (our team included) have weighed in on the issue, agreeing that this YouTube video may leave many questioning Hemsworth’s decision. Still, it won’t likely cause irreparable damage to his reputation.
Our years of experience with crisis communications have taught us how to mediate these types of crisis situations. As for the controversy over Hemsworth’s video, we believe that he simply posted the video too soon; much of the crisis could have been mitigated with different timing.
Mr.Beast Controversy and R Founder, Emily Bergh's Statement
"The dust has not settled," Bergh told Newsweek. "The MrBeast controversy is still too new... You need people to know you're sorry. Remain quiet and demonstrate that you’re not trying to deflect.” Bergh continued, “People need to know he actually is looking at himself, his past associations, and actions—not just saying he is."
Recommended Steps for Managing a Crisis
We always recommend implementing the following steps when encountering a crisis situation: stop, apologize, acknowledge what you did and what you can do better, and then make a plan and stick to it. People can see when an apology is fluff, so be authentic when acknowledging your mistake and dedicate time to reflect. These steps help reestablish trust with your key public audiences and avoid contradictory actions.
Whether you’re a celebrity, international business, or anything in between, it’s vital to consider how decisions affect your public image. You can apply these steps to any similar situation, no matter what kind of business you are.
If you encounter a crisis, seriously consider if hiring a crisis communication expert is right for you. In most cases, a crisis communications expert will help your business bounce back from a crisis by providing positive messaging guidance and keeping you on track.
