Here I have sort out 11 great PR Ideas that can boast your strategies from a book named 100 Great PR Ideas by Jim Blythe. By writing this article, I actually want to pay tribute to Jim Blythe for his great book. Therefore, I have mostly use his own theme of these ideas.
CREATE A CRISIS TEAM
Bad things happen in most industries from
time to time. For many firms, such a crisis can be enough to destroy the
company. However, if a crisis does occur, it is amazing how fast it can
turn from a simple, solvable problem into a PR disaster. Many companies have a
well-established crisis team who anticipate scenarios that may create PR
problems, and work out solutions in advance. So practice followings.
a. Choose the right people to be on the
team. They need to be senior enough to carry credibility with the firm’s
publics, and to understand the possible problems and solutions.
b. Arrange for the crisis team to meet
regularly to consider possible scenarios.
c. Practice or do dummy runs (Carry out mock
exercises).
d. Ensure that team members know how to deal
with the press because having someone say “No comment” to every question is a
PR disaster in itself.
DEFINE YOUR OPPONENT
Knowing your opponent is one thing but defining
them in the minds of your publics is another. Subtlety is needed! The way
forward for many organizations is to use wording that conveys a solidly
positive image, forcing opponents to take up the negative stance. So practice followings.
a. Find the positives.
b. Choose the positive that forces your
opponents into a negative position.
c. Do not muddy the waters, keep plugging
the positive term you have decided on.
d. Be prepared for retaliation. Your
opponents will probably respond in kind.
DO GOOD BY STEALTH
Many firms make a big song-and-dance
about their charity work, promoting their generosity in sponsoring this or that
good cause. This is all well and good, but can easily backfire. The alternative
is to keep fairly quiet about charitable behavior but how can this benefit the
company? So practice followings.
a. Involve your staff, in fact for
preference put them in charge of the project.
b. Support your staff effort. If you can’t
give them time off, let them use company facilities or provide them with
funding, perhaps by matching any money they raise.
c. Do not be tempted to publicize what they
are doing. This is likely to damage the word-of-mouth effect and dilute the
impact of the exercise.
d. Accept that results may be a long time in
coming, and there will be problems along the way as staff make errors or choose
inappropriate projects. Don’t be afraid to let them learn.
PULL A STUNT
The history of public relations is
littered with publicity stunts. The aim of a stunt is to generate word of mouth;
a good stunt can keep people talking for days. The best stunts are ones that
relate to the product and that are eye-catching and creative; good street
theater, in other words. So practice followings.
a. Ensure that your stunt is legal.
b. Remember that the stunt must fit in with
the images of the people involved.
c. Be wary of upsetting the journalists, they
do not like being fooled, any more than do the rest of us, but they are usually
happy to go along with a spoof.
SET AN AMBUSH
Ambush PR is about riding on the back of
someone else’s expenditure, and it happens frequently when companies sponsor
events. Although being an official sponsor of a major event such as the
football World Cup or the Wimbledon tennis tournament carries a great deal of
publicity value, it does cost a lot of money as well, and often the sponsors
are lost among a welter of other organizations so that the payoff becomes hard
to identify. So practice followings.
a. Find an event that links to your product
in a fairly direct way.
b. Carry out your own activities in as close
a proximity to the main event as you are able.
c. Do not make any direct statements linking
your firm to the event, let your actions speak for themselves.
d. Expect retaliation.
BE HUMOROUS
Humor has always been a good way to get
people to feel positive about the organization. Many companies produce humorous
advertisements, but there is no reason why PR should not also operate with a
sense of fun. Sponsorship has always been a popular tool of PR: it generates
word of mouth and creates a good impression of the fi rm. Some firms have even managed
to make sponsorship fun by backing something humorous. So practice followings.
a. Look for something that your target
audience likes.
b. Tap into their sense of humor: this may
or may not be the same as your own.
c. Help the people you sponsor to publicize
themselves.
KEEP THEM WAITING
Most PR people like to blow the fanfare
when they have something new to promote. After all, it is a great opportunity
to show what can be done with an effective PR campaign, and enables them to
give the media something really meaty for a change. Yet it is a truism in PR
that the greatest successes come from doing something different from what
everyone else is doing. So why not have a non-launch, and keep people waiting
for the product? So practice followings.
a. Ensure that you have something that
people will find exciting anyway: this idea works best for new products in a
series, such as new models of car, book and movie sequels, and new menu items
in restaurants.
b. Set a date for the release of the product
and publicize it.
c. Limit the number of outlets or the supply
of products, this is more likely to create an initial frenzy.
HOLD A COMPETITION
Competitions, lotteries, contests of any
sort always attract attention, but some are more newsworthy than others.
Competitors remember the firm, and often talk about the competition, but the
best outcome is, of course, if the competition makes the news in some way. So practice
followings.
a. Choose a competition topic that is
newsworthy.
b. Invite specific contestants if at all
possible, if not, ensure that your pre-publicity is targeted at contestants who
will generate publicity themselves.
c. Ensure that the competition is strongly
branded.
RUN A MEDIA EVENT
Holding a media event (sometimes called a
press conference) is a great thing to do if you have something important to
announce, but many firms only do it when there is a crisis. Media events give
the journalists a chance to ask questions in a way that a press release does
not. It enables them to build a story around their own needs or the needs of their
particular publication and to investigate areas that the company may or may not
want to have brought to light. So practice followings.
a. Time the event to suit the journalists’
deadlines.
b. Consult your local journalists
beforehand.
c. Ensure that senior managers are on hand,
and that they are well briefed on the types of question to be asked and the
appropriate replies.
d. Remember that the media are on your side
as long as they can see some benefit for themselves.
BE PROMINENT ON GOOGLE
The internet has, of course, wrought many
changes in the way businesses operate. One of the major ones is in corporate
communications, simply because people no longer sit around waiting for
companies to communicate with them. Typically, people seek out information
online, and in fact control the flow of information. This has major
implications for public relations. People seek out information from sources
that they find agreeable, either from the viewpoint of being familiar and easy
to use or from the viewpoint of having content that matches with the
individual’s own views. People are not passive recipients of information, and
the internet allows them to take this further by choosing which company’s
websites they go to. So practice followings.
a. Choose your keywords carefully, based on
what your publics are likely to enter into their search engines.
b. Ensure that your content will not
disappoint.
c. Visit the website regularly yourself and
encourage others to do so this tends to move it up the list in terms of search
results.
GET ON YOUTUBE
YOUTUBE has been the online phenomenon of
the century so far. It allows people to post pretty much anything they want to
on video, provided it isn’t pornographic or libellous or otherwise illegal.
People like to see themselves on telly, and a huge number of people have taken
advantage: everything from professionally produced clips down to cellphone
videos appear on YouTube, and clips come in from all over the world. Of course,
outright commercial plugs aren’t permitted, but that’s not what PR is about
anyway. So practice followings.
a. YouTube will edit you out if you are
overtly commercial rather than just interesting.
b. Have the actual filming done as
professionally as possible, but without the “Hollywood” touch. YouTube is about
people, not about slick production.
c. Keep it personal. Talk about yourself, not the company (although you can, of course, mention the company too).