How to write a PR article that will go viral?

The company’s new product is launched, and you suddenly receive a task from your boss: “Write a PR article , the kind that will go viral!”

You were completely confused at that time. You had never seen the product, never used it, and you were not allowed to attend the press conference. How could you write it? With a skeptical attitude, you find an article on the Internet that you think is pretty good, and you start to feel happy and think that you can copy this article. (My inner thoughts: Hahahaha, I’m so talented.)

So, after several hours of hard work and patchwork, you finally wrote an article similar to "XX product is newly launched, bringing huge changes to the industry" and handed it to your leader.

The leader has read it, pretended to understand it, and even helped you change the title to " Surprise! "XX product is newly launched on the market, bringing about huge changes in the industry." You are sincerely convinced by the leader's corrections and show flattery with an expression of "thank you for the grace of the Lord." The leader looks at you and also exudes a kind of joy of "well-cultivated". The two of you glance at each other, and it is clear that you understand each other, appreciate each other, and feel that you didn't meet each other earlier, which makes other colleagues jealous in an instant.

This is what most people do when writing PR copy.

As you can tell from the title, such content cannot be effectively disseminated, nor will it enhance the brand’s image and value. This kind of public relations draft is still alive in the last century. It is still immersed in the information monopoly of the previous paper media era. It is completely unsuitable for today's "completely open" "topic without boundaries" and "everyone is a carrier" society.

Since the advent of the mobile Internet era in 2013, each of us has been led by the nose by the mobile phone. Social forms and lifestyles are undergoing disruptive changes, and public relations are undoubtedly involved in them.

Therefore, if you want to write a good public relations article, you need to truly understand the dissemination motivation of public relations articles in the current industry, and output public relations articles based on the multi-dimensional changes in media, audience, and content, so as to truly influence consumer perception and promote mass consumption.

1. New changes: What the authority says does not count

As we all know, public relations releases are a way of spreading the voice of a company to the outside world through the perspective of third-party media. They are between news and advertising, and are more independent, objective, and easier to gain the trust of the audience.

The ultimate goal of public relations is the same as that of advertising: to build awareness and thus shape the brand.

Public relations is "others praise me", while advertising is "I praise myself". The core difference between the two lies in the speaker. The former is more neutral, so it is more trustworthy.

In the past, the most common way for the public relations industry to shape the brand image was to hold meetings (in the form of press conferences/test drives/charity events, etc.) - invite media participation (invitation by colleagues from the media department) - issue press releases (modify press releases and release to the media). Of course, this involves the setting of a lot of content, links, and rhetoric, and some also require the planning of public relations events, but the general logic is similar.

Public relations releases are one of the important communication bridges. They are official information provided to the public from a brand perspective. Just like a corporate spokesperson, they are the core content of formal documents.

However, the mobile Internet era has magnified each individual, which has correspondingly split the influence of authoritative media and brought about new changes in several aspects:

1. Media authority is being undermined

With the increase in information channels and catalyst windows, the previous situation of "authoritative media is authoritative rhetoric" has gradually declined, and media authority is being eroded by new media.

2. Information clients become a new window for the public to obtain information

Different groups of people have different windows for obtaining information, resulting in a phenomenon of continuous differentiation in cognition. You are watching the news broadcast on TV, I am reading news on Toutiao, and he is checking the news on Sina Weibo.

3. Information Explosion

A piece of information only exists in people's minds for a few seconds before it is drowned out by various information flows. Therefore, it takes more energy and financial resources to bombard people with information, otherwise it will be difficult to form cognition.

4. The entertainment-first atmosphere in the whole society

It makes celebrity gossip information easier to spread and win more disseminators.

5. The power of search is in the hands of the public

The public gets what they search for, and information platforms push accurate information, making it difficult for public relations news to enter the minds of ordinary consumers.

Changes in the media environment have made it increasingly difficult to disseminate public relations materials. The ultimate issue in public relations or advertising is brand communication, that is, how to create a strong perception in the minds of consumers.

This requires that the writing of public relations articles needs to fully consider the impact of the environment:

(1) PR articles must portray the “latest information”. Finding “new” is the key to PR article writing because the media only likes to report new things, not better things.

(2) More focused media placement. There are too many media platforms that require you to have a keen eye to select the most appropriate media combination placement form, and then create a powerful information dissemination plan to obtain a greater input-output ratio.

(3) In the era of headlines, one needs to stand out from the crowd of news and have a unique headline. A PR article competes with other PR articles for user time, so different headlines need to be produced to respond to different platforms so that the content can receive more exposure.

2. New audience: “I don’t want to listen, I ...”

Going back ten years, think about what media channels people used to obtain information?

Grandparents get information through newspapers and radio, family members get information through television and car radios, and many more people get information through the Internet. At that time, the Internet was basically controlled by three major portals and several forums. Each platform still adopted the PGC output method, and the content needed to be professionally reviewed. Therefore, the platform had the initiative at that time, and the audience was mostly listeners, not participants and processors of information.

Now, everything has changed. In the mobile Internet environment, the audience becomes a vivid "individual". They also have their own reading habits and voice channels, and each of them produces a large amount of redundant content, constantly showing their presence and self-worth awareness.

It can be said that each of us is a noise maker and a noise enjoyer.

The audience is not just an object of listening, but they also begin to enter the information center, obtain fragmented content, add their own experience, expand a topic or a story, and become opinion leaders. The audience also began to split into various puzzling forms:

1. You will never understand my circle culture

Different information shapes different cognitions, generates different interests, and also forms different circles. Because of different interests, the audience forms information barriers, giving birth to the circle culture of "you will never understand me". It is difficult for one circle to understand another circle, which makes different people parasitize in different groups and become increasingly divided.

2. Die on your phone

Nowadays, few people subscribe to newspapers, except for some knowledgeable and cultured old men and women. The main channel for everyone to obtain information has shifted to mobile phones, especially when my grandmother started using smartphones. Everyone eats, drinks, and has fun through their phones, so mobile phones have become the main battlefield.

3. The closer you are to me, the more trustworthy your circle of trust is

The world has opened up, but people’s hearts have closed. People’s circle of trust now consists of me - relatives - circle of friends - my favorite KOL - media reports - advertisements - other information. The closer they are to me and the better my relationship with them, the more trustworthy and closer they are.

4. Can be shorter

Because there is too much information and people have little time, short videos have become popular. People demand that reading articles be as short as possible, and few people actually read them.

"Not listening to big truths" has become the public's preference for receiving information. The audience selectively agrees with the opinions of the people closest to them, and the demand for length is getting less and less. Therefore, the writing of public relations articles should also be adjusted in a targeted manner:

(1) The same core information can be packaged with different titles and contents according to different delivery channels to satisfy the interest attributes of different cultural circles;

(2) Mobile clients are the main battlefield for gaining attention. Authoritative media raise the banner, and new media information giants and KOLs serve as the main voice window. Combined media forms cover a wider range;

(3) The content of the news must be more eye-catching, and the core information must be buried in the news so that after reading it, the audience will only be left with one main impression: this news is quite interesting, and this is what the XX brand is like.

Only by becoming a part of the audience and understanding their preferences can you truly create articles that interest readers and allow the brand to leave an impression through the form of an announcement.

3. New content: Finding communication levers

The media environment has changed, the information audience has changed, and the content creation of public relations articles also needs to be "reactivated". There are three ways to increase the value of public relations article content:

1. “Contrast creates novelty”

Anyone who has studied journalism has heard the saying: "When a dog bites a man it's not news; when a man bites a dog it's news." People always want to share things that exceed their expectations, and they remember them more deeply. Therefore, a good public relations article needs to find the "novelty" of the brand information and use it as a communication lever to leverage public awareness and produce a profound impact.

How to create novelty? List the brand’s key information 1, key information 2, and key information 3, and think about which information point may contrast with the audience’s basic cognition? Highlight the key information and generate content with communication points.

For example, news such as "Double Eleven Celebrities Delivering Goods: Li Xingliang Sends Mobile Phones and Is Flirted With by His "Male God"" and "JD.com Invites Celebrities to Deliver Goods on June 18, Gao Yuanyuan, Liu Yan and Others as Couriers" have content that carries a dissemination attribute. This was also a popular marketing method a few years ago. The "contrast" is the conflict between the celebrity's lofty status halo and the courier's obscurity and dullness. This is used to create news, which itself carries a dissemination point.

The above-mentioned marketing events are usually suitable for the hype of hot topics such as new products and new logistics. The content of the public relations articles must strongly highlight this contrast and hide some brand information points in the articles. Then, they can be published on more media platforms, thereby attracting audiences to read and accept brand information quietly.

Similarly, there are many similar events. For example, some creative facial masks, while having similar functions, work hard on packaging and form to produce new changes, making them the creators of new content and thus enhancing their own topicality.

2. “Creating a sense of intellectual superiority”

The mentality of comparison is human nature, and no one can get rid of it. People hope to get satisfaction through the affirmation and admiration of others. Whether it is putting forward a certain point of view, sharing a certain topic, bringing about certain thoughts, etc., they can highlight their sense of superiority through display and expression.

Many in-depth public relations articles usually contain this type of content. For example, the public relations opinion content produced by platforms such as 36Kr and Huxiu is mainly aimed at industry professional users and in-depth reading audiences. Such articles spread a sense of knowledge superiority when interpreting the brand's business model by breaking down the behind-the-scenes stories and certain industry insights. They not only share opinions or methodologies, but also spread the brand's core information.

For example, when a brand becomes popular, there will be many interpretations of its business model on the Internet, some of which are created by writers invited by the brand owner themselves, thereby promoting the upgrade of the corporate brand image. This method creates a knowledge gap and presents content objectively from a third-party perspective. It appears professional and has no suspicion of advertising, making it easier to spread.

"Understand Xiaomi's business model in one article", "The truth behind Xiaomi's "triathlon" business model", "Apple's plummeting losses may reach about US$2.8 billion, do you know the business logic behind it? 》 and other articles are of this type.

3. “Binding of high-frequency hot topics”

Many times, a brand owner’s product or service is a low-frequency consumer product, or it itself does not have any particularly “new” points. At this time, it is necessary to connect with a high-frequency hot spot, bind with this topic, and create new topic content as a dissemination point.

For example, Fotile range hoods previously made an advertisement in which they linked range hoods, a durable product that is not often discussed, with high-frequency family topics such as "skin care", "respiratory diseases", and "eye health", and produced an advertisement such as "Buy high-end skin care products to maintain your skin, but it can't resist the damage of low-quality range hoods". By binding to high-frequency hot topics and implanting the brand into them, a new association is created, making Fotile's public relations image closer to its positioning as a guardian of family life.

Similarly, if you need to buy a new car, you can also bind the main information to topics related to marriage and love and other topics related to public life, such as "large space to please the mother-in-law" and "a must-have car for family men", etc., so that the content of the public relations article is closely related to topics of public concern, thereby attracting more people's attention with the help of high-frequency topics.

In addition to content planning, the media delivery needs to change the communication language according to different channels. For example, Zhihu platform usually writes articles in the form of questions, UC browser focuses on "shocking style", and media clients prefer news headlines. The same content can be retitled according to different platforms, thereby forming content with high communication power.

Conclusion

1. Changes in the media environment and catalyst habits have prompted the writing of public relations articles to be considered with a marketing mindset throughout the article, thereby forming penetrating article content and leveraging the public's cognitive updates.

2. The core information is hidden in the content of the article. Only when the content of the article is effectively disseminated can the core information of the brand reach the audience and have a certain impact.

3. New content needs to create cognitive contrast. The media likes newer content rather than better content. New content encourages the media to actively spread it, which helps to enhance the intensity of communication.

4. In-depth knowledge creates a sense of superiority and can encourage the audience to share topics with more people; it binds high-frequency hot topics and activates the freshness of public relations content through topics that consumers care about, thereby spreading brand information to the public.

Author: Qu Tailang

Source: Qu Tailang