In today’s hyper-digital world,  consumer needs are ever-changing and the trust meter for brand messaging is on the decline.  Public relations become more important in engaging consumers, bolstering reputation, and driving broader business goals for companies.

The PR  industry is fast-paced and constantly evolving, so PR professionals must constantly try to stay ahead of the curve to deliver value to clients and businesses. 

Here are five tips to help communicators up their PR game and become better PRs in 2023. 

1) Stay informed and well-grounded

PRs must make time to read. There’s no shortcut to this if you want to advance in our industry and optimally service your clients. Keeping informed within your client industries will allow you to share fresh ideas and build up your creative ideation and strategy muscles when you’re drawing up your PR plans. You can subscribe to SmartBriefs to get industry-focused newsletters. It’s great for keeping informed on topics of interest within one email that you can read in a matter of minutes. 

Another smart way to stay ahead of the curve and know what’s happening in the PR industry or client industries is to follow niche influencers. You can also create Twitter Lists, where you can follow topics and interests. This allows you to browse headlines and tweets to stay informed in 140 characters or less. You can also pin your favourite Lists to the top of your Home timeline so you never miss a Tweet from the accounts that are most important to you. 

2) Make SEO your friend

To stand out and become a high-performing PR professional of high value to your organization and clients in 2023, you must make SEO your buddy, and understand its concepts and basics. It is no longer enough to simply have deep knowledge in your industry or to build an extensive network of contacts.  In 2023, you need more than that if you are going to stand out from the rest, build awareness for your clients, and increase their visibility and reach. SEO can help you do this!

Your SEO efforts can impact your client’s PR goals, as it helps you get the most out of every message that you put out.

Using PR and SEO together ensures that your company or client gets attention and increases brand awareness across as many channels as possible. Some very useful SEO tips include: Optimising links in earned coverage, Writing solid title tags and meta descriptions for posts, amplifying content across all channels, and newsjacking.

3) Take a fresh approach to media pitching

To improve the result of media pitches,  PR professionals should approach journalists with intentionality and with a view to building a professional relationship with journalists. Before the pitching of stories, proactively establish a relationship with journalists within your industry of focus. Connect with them on social media, comment on their works and engage them where necessary. When you eventually go to them with an idea or a press release, they are more likely to respond. Here are  3 general pitching tips to bear in mind:

• Personalised pitches tend to do better than a general one that’s sent out to tons of journalists. Try to add a personal feel to your pitches where possible.
• Make exclusive offers to journalists where possible. When this isn’t possible, try considering a new story angle or providing some information that gives the journalist an ‘exclusive feel’ to the story.
• Where possible, consider localizing pitches to set the right context with an understanding of their impact on the publication’s audience.

4) Be ethically conscious

Today, many companies are being closely scrutinised and called out for greenwashing and purpose washing. PR professionals will, thus,  have to be even more transparent, ethical and conduct themselves with integrity. 

As we continually witness the rise of more sustainable businesses and more eco-award companies, we can also see a parallel rise in the demand for PR that comes with honesty, integrity and is values-driven. The high-flying PR professional in 2023 must lead with a sustainability and ethical mindset to win. 

5) Analytics and measurement

Analytics and measurement are one area where PR professionals can really shine, as it goes on to showcase the value and impact their PR efforts have had on a business. Clients are now beginning to also realize there is more to what we do than media impressions and advertising equivalencies, so It’s very important to relate tactics back to tangible measurement. PR professionals should focus more on other indicators such as:

• Engagement and conversation, 
• Reach and impressions
• Sentiment, opinion, and advocacy
• Influence and relevance
• Impact and value
• Return-on-investment. 

Curzon PR is a London-based PR firm working with clients globally. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Business Development Team [email protected]