How to plan a public relations article that is natural and has “traffic”?

Companies use public relations to enhance their influence in society and the market. To improve brand awareness, harmony, and reputation, they must rely on news publicity and the help of media. Only by vigorously carrying out publicity based on brand value can companies gain differentiated competitiveness in the market competition environment, and thus form a market recognition image that is different from other homogeneous and uncompetitive brands.

First of all, writing news requires analyzing a certain event or multiple related events, which facts in these events have news value, and which types of news media need and can adopt these topics. And these topics that can be adopted by the media must also have the function of enhancing the value of the company and the brand. After determining the subject matter and content, you also need to consider how to plan and produce events with news and publicity value, as well as the formulation of communication strategies to achieve the best news publicity effect.

1. Determining the news value

Whether the event itself possesses the five elements that can attract the public's common concern, if not, we need to consider looking for other events. We cannot force or fabricate elements to satisfy the media's assessment of news value. Especially when fictitious events are exposed, not only will the written press release be worthless, it may even affect the development of good relations between the corporate brand and the media and the public. In serious cases, it may cause a public relations crisis for the brand or destroy its reputation overnight.

1. Timeliness

The timeliness of a news event refers to the timeliness of a news event relative to the public. It must be a "recent" event that the public has not heard of. The best option is that the shorter the time between the real event and the news release, the more news value it has.

2. Importance

The incident has an important and significant impact on political and social life and can attract more people's attention. The closer an event is to the fundamental interests of the public, and the closer it is to the actual situation of the public's thoughts, life, and work, the greater its social and news significance will be. The media pays more attention to hot spots, doubts and difficult issues that concern the public, so the chances of a press release being adopted by the media will be higher if these conditions are met.

3. Specificity

The events that occur must have unique or rare characteristics, or even fully display the special attributes or special points of the events to the public, so that the news can attract public attention.

4. Proximity

The closer the reported events are to the public's psychology, occupation, space, thoughts, consciousness, experience, etc., the easier it is for such news content to arouse the public's interest or resonate with them on an emotional level, which in turn will affect the public's attention and depth of memory when receiving the news.

5. Human touch

Human feelings are actually human emotions, which are very similar to proximity, but focus more on emotions towards third parties, such as public welfare and charity events. Events that involve family affection, love, friendship, and care will more easily resonate with the public's emotions.

summary

The five elements of news value not only involve the scope of time and space, but also penetrate deep into the hearts and lives of the public. It can guide companies to effectively cover, attract attention and resonate with the target public groups during the dissemination of news events. It can also highly associate the brand image with information that the public cares about, is interested in and is close to their lives, thereby producing an effective penetration effect.

2. Determine the value of publicity

The publicity value means that the content of news reports in public relations can express the company's purpose, proposition, and intention. It is one of the four important functions that a company has in the public after conveying information to the outside world.

1. Constructive

It means that through the dissemination of news, the public who receive the information can gain a new or deeper understanding of the company, which can help establish the brand image and arouse the public's new interest or feelings towards the brand.

2. Sustainability

Being able to continuously disseminate information to the public through news will allow the brand image to gradually become clear and take root in the public's mind in a subtle way. For the public who are more familiar with the brand, it will enhance the brand's awareness and reputation, as well as more associations with social significance and public interests.

3. Explanatory

If a brand is caught in a crisis or misunderstanding, and some rumors or negative information have been spread among the public, the negative impact of these rumors among the public can be eliminated through news dissemination to restore the brand's true image and reputation.

4. Corrective

Compared with explanation, in some communication incidents caused by emergencies or mistakes, brands can publicize the key points and crux of the problem, and propose corresponding solutions and appropriate attitudes to eliminate negative impacts and restore, or even strengthen the brand's reputation and good image in the minds of the public.

summary

Constructiveness and sustainability are the key factors to ensure that after the press release is issued, the public receiving the information will have a deeper understanding of the brand and form associations with the brand image. Explanatory and corrective means that when a corporate brand is disturbed by itself or the outside world, it plays an important role in maintaining the brand image by using news releases in formal and regular channels to present facts and attitudes to the public, provide solutions to incidents, and provide solutions to problems.

3. Planning and production effects

The planning and production of news mainly focuses on the writing ideas of press releases, and they need to be written in accordance with the planning requirements and methods of various genres of press releases, so that the manuscripts can be submitted to the media for review and release with quality guaranteed. Below the author lists some types of news planning and production.

1. Social hot spots

Before planning news, you need to understand the hot issues that the public is currently concerned about, and these hot issues are also the topics that the news media are interested in.

For example, during the college entrance examination period, the "college entrance examination" is a hot topic in the whole society, and the public is paying attention to which issues are closely related to the planned events. At this time, Didi launched free and high-discount preferential policies for candidates and parents, and rewarded franchised drivers who could provide high-quality services and generate word-of-mouth effects. It then planned some closely related follow-up events based on the brand's public relations history. This not only deepened the brand image with the target audience during the college entrance examination, but also continued this positive and high-quality public relations effect through subsequent events, highlighting the brand's summary attitude in its past public relations history and demonstrating the brand's determination to actively develop into the future.

2. Charity activities

When a company organizes or participates in social welfare activities in the name of its brand, it is itself sufficient material for high-quality public relations news. The public always has a positive and appreciative attitude towards public welfare, and it is an excellent opportunity for brands to promote cultural concepts and demonstrate behavioral practices through the media.

For example, Starbucks participated in the "Caring for and Educating Aboriginal Children" charity event in Taiwan. Through Starbucks' publicity channels in each community, it cooperated with Taiwan's news media to explain in the news that Aboriginal children cannot go to school and study happily like other children because their parents can only make ends meet by doing odd jobs due to family difficulties. The subsequent content not only highlighted the fact that it has participated in this charity event every year, but has also helped nearly a thousand aboriginal children realize their dreams of going to school, donated a total of nearly NT$10 million, and provided uninterrupted funding and efforts for related charity projects such as collecting books and extracurricular activity camps. Moreover, the ways to participate in its public welfare activities are harmoniously embedded in the news. The public can make their own contribution to these public welfare undertakings by simply purchasing designated coffee when drinking coffee in Starbucks. It is undeniable that no one would feel disgusted by this kind of public relations advertising. Not only will more people participate in charity activities, they will also sit down in Starbucks and buy a cup of "charity coffee".

3. Festivals

Leverage local traditional festivals to build momentum for brand-planned events, and release the events as news with the help of the media. Not only must we capture the common attributes of the product and the festival, but we must also conform to the previously mentioned elements such as timeliness and human touch, as well as grasp the constructive elements and sustainability points based on the significance and periodicity of the festival.

The most noteworthy and widespread traditional festival in China is the "Spring Festival". During the long holiday, the most frequent scenes when people visit relatives and friends are family interiors and dining places. By combining the two, catering companies can launch special dishes, home-made semi-finished products and other products, and plan "creative activities" with the theme of relatives and friends to drive the participation of a wide range of public as news, highlight the constructive and human touch in the activities as content elements, and through cooperation with news media and extensive coverage, it can achieve high-quality communication effects and form a penetrating market influence.

4. Celebrity Effect

Not only celebrities have the celebrity effect, but people in society who are the focus of much attention will also have a corresponding degree of celebrity effect. The publicity effect generated by news related to celebrities can not only gain the influence of the media, but also increase the dissemination, influence, reputation and other aspects of the relevant public attributes brought by celebrities. The degree of fit between celebrity attributes and brand attributes is the key in the news planning process.

Famous film and television actors and singers have strong public attributes, but not all brands, products, or even industries have high compatibility requirements. Planners also need to consider the differentiated attributes of celebrities’ personalities and behaviors. Such segmented attributes are not only responsible for the brand’s reputation, but also for public acceptance and communication effects. If there is too obvious "contradiction" between the celebrity attributes and the brand and industry attributes, then the media review rate of the press release cannot be guaranteed.

5. News Media

The planning requirements for this type of news are higher than those for other types, because if a brand wants to cooperate with public media to hold an event, the purpose is very clear: to use news media to increase the company's public credibility, brand exposure, shape the brand image, and increase brand product sales. The basic requirement of news media is to reduce these commercial elements that are beneficial to the brand, and instead hope to obtain press releases and event planning content that can enhance public attributes.

A relatively simple planning method is to implant recognizable and soft brand elements, such as brand logo, text, slogan or USP, into links with high appearance rate, good camera image and good public influence, or even have news participants positively evaluate the product. However, it should be noted that the news cannot appear in front of the public like the "brainwashing mode" of a reality show. Instead, shots of key memory points must be selected for precise implantation. For example, when brand public relations cannot control the content of the news due to media requirements during planning, they can first familiarize themselves with the on-site process or news structure as much as possible, and then conduct public relations communication or negotiation to finalize the specific implantation plan.

4. News Communication Strategy

The dissemination of news is different from commercial advertising. In order to achieve the best dissemination effect of good news evaluation, it is necessary to combine the content with the characteristics of the media and the characteristics of the public for sufficient analysis and evaluation, so that the three parties can be balanced and adapted to each other, and pay attention to controlling three key points about the media dissemination effect.

1. Media authority and reliability

From the public's perspective, whether the news source is authoritative enough and its reliability will directly affect the credibility and effectiveness of the news. If the communicator has social status and influence, is a key figure in a certain field, or is a celebrity who can often speak from an objective, fair and public standpoint, and endorses and disseminates the news content, and then it is reported and released by national or provincial television and online news media, then the authority and credibility of the news will be recognized and guaranteed accordingly.

2. Type of media

The media commonly used for news propaganda include newspapers, radio, television, portals with strong credibility, and state-authorized online news platforms. Each media organization has its own advantages and differences. For example, CCTV's brand programs and CCTV News Client belong to the same large media system. However, there are still many differences between TV programs and online news information. The differences in audience, timeliness, coverage of time and space will provide planners with diversified options, and flexible selection or combination adjustment is a necessary condition for communication strategy to ensure the effectiveness.

3. Public characteristics

The content of news communication must be in line with the characteristics of the public, and analyze the attitudes, thinking, experience, concepts, values, etc. of the public before they are exposed to the news. These elements will cause the public's understanding and memory after being exposed to the news to varying degrees or in essence, which will affect the news communication in unpredictable ways.

When planners decide on the content to be disseminated, they must determine the characteristics of the audience. Only by determining a dissemination strategy that suits the public's characteristics can the news media be driven to meet the public's information needs, thereby achieving the dissemination of news content that can be recognized by the three parties of business, media, and the public, and thereby ensuring that the news dissemination strategy can achieve the desired effect.

Conclusion

For corporate brand public relations, the difficulty of news publicity lies in how to write the brand's "story" into news, or how to write some ordinary things into "extraordinary" events. It not only requires careful consideration of the "finishing touch", but also requires attention to the key details of news planning.

Author:Leon360k

Source: PR Home