There is a revolution happening in public relations. The Internet and social media provide alternatives to traditional broadcast and print media channels. People find out about stories that interest them from posts on social media and websites. So if you are trying to do PR the old fashioned way by just getting the attention of journalists in the news media, you may find that your efforts are less effective. Today’s PR experts must employ new strategies to reach people.

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Public Relations Chess

Instead of depending solely on traditional forms of media, you must play a game of chess with your audiences and media outlets on a wide variety of channels. To win at chess, you can’t just focus on the move you are going to make. You must constantly think a few moves ahead. You have to anticipate what is going to happen to your content after you introduce it to the media.

Beyond the traditional media, there are content curators. These people collect a wide variety of content in fields that interest them and bring it together on their sites. These sites are huge collections of stories that are sorted by subject, popularity and many other features. People looking for interesting stories follow content curators and re-post their content. In fact, 32% of content marketers use other people’s content daily.

New Strategies

This is great news for people using public relations as a marketing tool. If you can create content that appeal to content curators, then your content will be spread around the web through social media sharing. Here are some strategies for doing this:

  • Identify the influencers in your field. What sites are your customers using to get information? Who are they getting their news from? You want to identify the preferred communication channels as well as the people who wield influence on these channels.
  • In addition to using traditional media, you can pitch your content directly to prominent content curators in your field. Having identified key influencers, you can approach them directly with your content as you would anyone in the media.
  • Use social sharing buttons to make it easy for people to share your content. When people share your story, you get more exposure.
  • Make sure your content appeals to curators. Use a strong, stunning headline. Connect your content with timely trending topics. Include lists and images. Be brief, but be true to your brand. All these things make your content appealing to curators.
  • You want to pay attention to search algorithms, but ultimately your content will be read by humans. Make sure it is engaging and valuable to your human audience.

Content curation is creating a revolution in public relations. If you don’t adopt new strategies to deal with this new reality, you risk getting left behind.