One of the perennial problems of PR specialists is trying to ‘prove’ that their work has measurable effects. We can count, for example, the number of publications and the advertising equivalent, but this, in the opinion of the client, may not be enough to assess the effectiveness of the action taken. It would be best to check how a given action translates into sales or increased brand awareness.

This year, for the third time, the National Conference on Modern PR and Communication was organised by Online Marketing magazine and this is no small matter. Modern PR is increasingly having to draw on tools and analytics that until now have been considered typically marketing and sales-oriented.

How often do you check your statistics in Google Analytics?

This was one of the first questions asked at the conference. There were only a few raised hands. Not surprisingly, not long ago PR professionals not only did not actively use this popular tool for monitoring website traffic, they did not even have a clue what data could be ‘pulled’ from it. Today, its basic familiarity is essential. And although PR specialists are not fond of numbers, statistics help to solve the eternal problem of the industry, namely: how to measure the effects of communication activities?

For good monitoring of effects, the PR specialist must work closely with those responsible for data analysis on the client’s side or check the statistics on their own. Even if increasing website traffic is not the primary goal of media outreach, comparing how individual publications affect Google searches helps to create a more complete picture of the effects of PR activities, which will help both clients and agency staff.

How do publications affect SEO?

An increase in the number of publications is not everything. Articles about a brand showing up online with an active link to the site also affect another important area for a company or project that those working in PR do not deal with directly – SEO. Any online publication bumps up the SEO of a website, provided there is a ‘dofollow’ redirect, i.e. one that refers indexing robots to an external web address, in this case our website that we want to promote.

Editors realise that active links in an article are a real, often directly transferable value to the company in terms of sales (especially in the retail industry), so such activities are difficult to work out from media relations alone. However, this does not mean that you should not try. A well-described design and content that is interesting to the user of a particular site can allow a hyperlink to be positioned in the PR text. This is an element to pay attention to when dealing with editors.

Social media are always first

Communication activities are increasingly shifting to social media. This is where crises erupt the fastest and where information about the company or its direct competitors emerges. Users gathered around company fanpages, customers, but also investors, demand an immediate reaction to reports appearing in these communication channels. A negative text about a company pasted on Facebook or Twitter can go viral to a much wider group than the newspaper’s circulation. None of the people reached by the message will wait for a correction or a new article – if the company does not respond quickly it may lose trust, which is hard to rebuild. Efficient social media communication can also nip a crisis in the bud.

Joint discussion of the PR project

Taking into account an ever-increasing number of variables and the need to communicate to very diverse social groups associated with particular media makes it necessary to develop communication strategies, as well as large PR projects, in the company of specialists from other areas. Generating new ideas and looking for unprecedented solutions is a must. Design Thinking, an increasingly popular model of workshop work, comes to the rescue. It resembles an extended brainstorming session, bringing together all the people who will be involved in a project in the future. In the case of establishing a communication plan, these may include people from both the agency and the client side, e.g. PR specialists, SEO team members, people preparing content, marketing specialists and analysts, graphic designers, but also people from within the company, not only from the communication departments, who need to understand what message the company is ‘going out’ with. It is important that employees from all departments are ambassadors of the brand or company – they need to know and understand the established strategy, so it is worth listening to their opinions when thinking about the project.

Transparency, speed and collaboration

In summary, the most important conclusions to be drawn from the Congress are the need for PR specialists to work closely with those responsible for other areas of communication. Sharing knowledge and jointly setting goals will not only help to streamline work, but will also bring better results for clients, including perhaps helping to prevent crises. It is also worth supplementing your knowledge in areas such as analytics, SEO or marketing in order to be able to work smoothly with the specialists dealing with these aspects on a daily basis.