55 tips, tools and articles that will super-charge your Public Relations knowledge in 2018
By: Stella Bayles
Tags: Pr, Marketing, Pr Tools, Public Relations, Pr Resolution

This is just one of the amazing tips from the Queen of metrics Katie Paine in this interview on PR News. We are big fans of Katie here at CoverageBook. She always explains clearly how to demonstrate organisational impact from your PR work. Check out this interview to begin to improve your measurement today.

We are passionate about exploring ways to demonstrate PR success, especially at an article-level because it’s not easy. So when Gary discovered the research of Frederic Filloux, a journalist and an entrepreneur in editorial and business-side news, we were intrigued. Could there be a future standard for article strength? What do you guys think?

2018 plans are underway and creatives are about to be brought to life. Just before you tie down the exact detail for content take a look at this research from content share experts BuzzSumo. The 20 most engaging types of content. Pow! Thanks BuzzSumo :)

Do you or one of your team members have their first client meeting coming up? It’s a daunting first task in PR.. but it doesn’t have to be. Here ex-PR consultant and CoverageBook team member Laura Joint shares her best tips in how to ace your first meeting.

Last month 3500 digital marketers arrived in Brighton for the UK’s biggest Search marketing conference. One of the attendees was Edelman London’s Tech PR Account Manager, Peter McIntyre. Here he outlines a talk from Yext’s Duane Forrester on what a future SEO job description. Elements of the role may look familiar to you…

Orin Puniello, part Ketchum Global Research & Analytics team shares why some PR measurement models will never tell you the whole truth. But inspired by preeminent statistician, George Box, Orin also outlines why asking the correct questions in measurement and evaluation is key.

It’s the season for reviewing the year’s PR activity and setting next year’s KPIs so metrics and models are hot topics. Should you introduce new evaluation strategies or stick with AVE? Before you do anything review evaluation expert Steph Bridgman’s A-Z of reporting. It’s gold-dust.

Does your PR coverage include links to owned content? Those links could be the key to prove customer engagement and sales. Yes, they can help you add a financial value to your reporting. Check out my post to find out how.

The way people ask questions online is the key to finding out how your target audience think and what they want to view online. It’s amazing how you can uncover nuggets of insight from real queries. But where are those questions? This post and a new feature on insight tool BuzzSumo holds a lot of the answers!

AnswerThePublic.com, our tool that demonstrates the way people ask questions on Google has had a refresh! We’ve added a new set of “comparison” terms into the mix to help develop data into insights that can help develop your ideas. We’ve also speeded thing ups so you can access results faster than ever. It’s free, why not give it a go now?

This post from Joe Pulizzi totally resonated with me. When I left comms agency work for PR technology I felt I had to unlearn many of the techniques I’d built up over 13 years. It’s easy to produce similar campaigns each year and a challenge to find time to learn. But could these habits be holding us back?

Oh wait…Content sharing and analysis heavyweights LinkedIn and BuzzSumo have just delivered it! Step forward one of the most useful papers you’ll read this year ‘The DNA behind the world’s most successful content’. A useful review and step by step guide on how to develop content that your audience wants and will read.

Gini Dietrich from Spin Sucks explores the notion of not having a universal financial value in PR and how a stack of tools can get to a valuable ROI. If you have paid, earned, shared and owned elements to your campaign check this guide out!

In the last few years the amount of tech I use to free up time has increased massively. I also feel I’m happier now more than ever. Is there is a link? YES! This article proves that more time is the key to happiness. Do you agree?

Search tools, insight and data can be confusing. But if you want your content to be found online then this kind of insight is essential. That’s why I was so happy to spot this easy to follow guide on MOZ last week. Keyword research step by step. If you’re creating content in PR take note of hacks one and two especially.

Google analytics users will now be able to obtain information about web traffic more easily and quickly with natural language. This update is ideal for people like us (busy people in PR!). It will take some time to work out the best questions but it still be quicker. And we’re fans of anything helping to automate long-winded tasks.

As a tech business we’re drowning in metrics from all of the tools that we use. We have access to a lot of data! But what does it all tell us? Measurement should be about learning & drawing insights, but that’s not possible if you switch between multiple metrics. Could just one metric be the answer?

Site analytics shows where site visitors came from. That means it’s possible to see how many people your coverage directed to your client’s content. Great. But the big problem is accessing the data. Here Gary shares a guide and email template to the people that hold the key…

Google has just announced one the biggest changes to the search engine in recent years. Search results and news on Google is about to be personalised to the user. This is big news in how your coverage is found, viewed and consumed online. Get up to date here.

Integrating social content is key to most campaigns but often we’re challenged by getting content built and on site. That’s why new tool WayIn is so exciting. Brand social activity into site content in real-time.

Ever wondered how digital businesses track and measure their marketing? Do they use AVE, erm NO they don’t! Let’s not sit and wonder let’s take a look! Avinash Kaushik,author and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google takes us through 15 businesses marketing metrics. All from a variety of sectors too. Perfect.

If you’re using one of the big industry monitoring services you probably receive your online coverage clippings as a list of hyperlinks. That’s fine but what if you need to use or share the links? Hours are spent daily individually converting them…Until now. We just made a free tool to convert for you.

Our clever friends over at Buzzsumo reviewed over 100m Facebook posts recently. Not surprisingly posts with images were shared the most but it was a particular type of picture-led style that really grabbed their attention. Here Buzzsumo founder Steve Rayson shares what a picture list post is and how to nail it in your campaign.

Using a lovely ice cream analogy Jay Acunzo, founder of Unthinkable explains the behaviours that are helping the best in content marketing succeed. Including how they wouldn’t look at other experts as they’re just too busy innovating…

It’s no secret that I used to work in SEO and PR, so you may have heard me speak about Search insights before. This article, about the increased traffic going to The Sun site caught my eye. It’s a case study of how SEO hugely increased traffic to the publication and how content strategy led this. Is it time to include search insights into your campaign?

We interviewed Smoking Gun PR’s Managing Director Rick Guttridge to find out why they have been refusing to offer AVE’s in their PR measurement. Here he tells us how their strong stance led to two global AMEC awards and some very happy clients.

A great post from our friends at Mention on why “All-in-one” reporting tools don’t always demonstrate true PR impact . They also share 14 alternative tools you should have in your measurement armoury.

In my 15 years in communications I’ve worked in traditional PR agencies, digital marketing teams and a Search marketing agency. All of which are often competing for the same budget. Here I share three lessons in how to compete and eventually grow your PR budget.

We know that content is important in PR now but can we explain why? Here Gini Dietrich from SpinSucks delves into the Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned content model to explain why creating owned content is probably one of the most important areas in modern PR success.

New tool tip alert! I just tested True Social Metrics for a couple of campaigns and loved it. Easy to use, great insights and all of my social metrics in one place.

Read Gary’s tale of woe that motivated the team to release our latest free tool logowall.co

The communications landscape has changed. New breed competitors including content marketing, influencer outreach and SEO link-building agencies are now pitching and winning PR budgets. I hosted a PRSA webinar back in July providing actionable steps to take. Watch the recording now.

We’ve teamed up with PR evaluation expert and founder of Experienced Media Analysts, Steph Bridgeman to launch a new eBook; #PRMeasurent : How to take it to the next level. Steph delves into her years of media evaluation experience and shares a step by step guide in quantifying PR success. Don’t miss out download now.

Content marketing experts Velocity have done it again. This new Slide-share will stop you in your tracks and make you consider how to achieve cut through with your next campaign. If content is part of your next plan click the link and take note!

PR agency founder and author Rich Leigh releases his brilliant book ‘Myths of PR: All Publicity is Good Publicity and Other Popular Misconceptions’. It takes down some popular misconceptions about the public relations business. It has shot to the top of Amazon bestseller lists this week and I believe it’s a PR must-read.

Threepipe became the first UK PR agency to acquire an SEO firm last year. Its founder Jim Hawker believes it was the only way they could develop their digital skills to answer the SEO demands of their clients. But is this the case for the whole industry? Read Jim’s insights and my response on Paul Sutton’s PR blog. We don’t agree on all points — fight!

Kristina Libby, a professor at the University of Florida and co-founder of influencer marketing platform SoCu guest posts on PR News and explores keeping a social audience engaged. Kristina shares three considerations to keep in mind for your next customer community strategy.

The PR industry has worked hard to lose its reputation of bending the truth and inflating statistics but how honest are we prepared in campaigns? Here, content marketing experts Velocity Partners share six examples of when brands have been insanely honest and share why it worked.

It has been said by many (including me) that we lose our target audience’s attention in 8 seconds. Less than a goldfish. However, new research suggests that might not be the case. I guess if you’re still reading this we’ve just debunked the myth! But if you want the real proof and find out how it relates to your client’s content read on.

We discovered Right Relevance last week and we love it. Connect your client’s Twitter profile to analyse social influence and audience engagement. It’s also a great tool to help build out your target media lists for campaigns. And did we mention it’s free?

If you’re in b2b PR then listen up. Social content insight experts BuzzSumo have dug into their data and worked out the components to create LinkedIn posts that will engage and be shared. A free cheat-sheet and guide will help you create your most successful content yet.

If your agency is running paid ads on behalf of your clients you need to read this article. Online advertising has changed. Gone are the days when you paid for an ad and knew exactly where it would be and when. Now it’s in the hands of of the programmatic platforms. The results? Greater reach but also a potential reputation issue. Be aware.

If you’re not familiar with the bots it’s time to meet them. Pawan Deshpande, founder of Curata, joined SpinSucks this week. Here he explains what artificial intelligence is and how to introduce it into your content marketing strategy.

Still on the subject of content, Scott Guthrie posted a great article reminding all marketers to hop of the brand content production train and remember to stop, answer questions, solve problems and build relationships.

Richard Bagnall chair of the Association of Media and Evaluation Companies (AMEC) met with Stephen Waddington Partner and Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum to discuss why 20% of organisations worldwide still use Advertising Equivalent Value (AVE). Here Stephen shares their discussion and asks if monitoring and measurement suppliers could be to blame?

AMEC chairman Richard Bagnall positions the argument against the metric here on Ragan. My favourite is no.13. Are you convinced?

Sometimes we just need to see how measurement has been done well, right? This deck does exactly that. Check out these great case studies from a past AMEC event. Successful measurement and not a rate card in sight.

Reach is an important part of measurement but you need to ensure you have the right figures to demonstrate awareness. Manchester-based PR agency Smoking Gun reveals how they measure PR success and why you need to be cautious with ‘reach’ data.

You get the coverage. Now it’s time to prove how it made your audience aware. But what next? Last week I spoke at a UK CIPR event about exactly that. Check out my slides where I share how to be realistic with your numbers and then prove the audience took action beyond awareness.

Ultimately AVE has been in reports as a way to get to a financial figure but as it’s not a great measure of success, what’s the alternative? The C-Suite wants to hear business impact and sales and analytics is the way to prove it. Read on if you like the sound of that.

Step inside the MVF PR team and find out how their data-led PR campaigns are driving traffic and winning awards.

Media lists, writing, monitoring, coverage reports, brainstorms.. Do you have a to-do list as long as your arm like me? Then read this great article on prioritisation on the Harvard Business Review. You’ll be feeling stress-free in no time.

Queen of measurement Katie Paine highlights that with fewer than 1 in 3 Americans trusting the media right now why are so many PR pros still mainly media focused? Only true outcome measurement will tell us if media placement works so ensure to measure right!

In order to improve PR performance this year and smash our KPIs we have to understand what we’ve achieved. Ensure you know how to analyse your results this year and not just report on them. Download our ebook PRetrospective now.

If you stay in the office late in your PR role then please look out for new book ‘Calm Company’ from Jason Fried, founder & CEO at Basecamp. Set for release later this year Jason promises to reveal how the employees at Basecamp are the most productive and successful than ever but also haven’t said “It’s crazy at work” for years. Inspiring.

All tips and articles were taken from the PR Resolution newsletter over the last 12months. If you would like to join the Resolution and receive the monthly newsletter from me in your inbox please sign up here.

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