This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!
A glimpse into where the future of Marketing & PR is going, to scare you a bit into starting.
Last week at a potential client meeting, I got one of the questions that I love to answer, but only when I feel like it’s the right context: “Can you tell me what Public Relations is?”
I was about 10 minutes into exploring the company and what they want to achieve with their marketing efforts this year. And although the conversation that naturally follows is what we could do to help them get the results they wanted, I was stopped dead in my tracks and asked to back the f*ck up and just explain what it is we do. I got the memo.
I am constantly flabbergasted at the lack of Marketing knowledge of many (most?) business owners. While they may not know exactly what PR is or does, they should know that everything they are doing contributes to PR. The way they speak. How their website looks. What they’re posting on social. What their products look like and how they could be used. And once I explained what was possible, it started to make sense.
Yesterday I attended a Lunch ‘n Learn presentation on PR & Influencer Marketing by a few women at Brix Media. I didn’t learn too much that was new to me, mostly about what the criteria was for becoming an “influencer” and how you know to expect to pay to play. Monday, Business in Vancouver posted an article about a local influencer agency, Influencer Agency (INF) and its representation of local food bloggers Adrian & Jeremy at The Food Gays. Below is one of their photos of a Sponsored Post for Happy Planet’s Tuscan Tomato Soup. And it’s gorgeous as hell.
Photo credit FoodGays.com
So my message to all the local businesses out there is that it is not enough to have products to engage with influencers or reach a mass audience. You now have to think of influencers as companies and invest what you would have in advertising (if you’re even still investing there) with them, and you’ll get more trackable data out of it. In my opinion, it’s a much better way to go, since you always want third party recognition (positively) talking about or engaging with your product, service, or event. And even though the influencers in Vancouver are still few, it will give you a taste of what to expect if you’re even thinking bigger and want to target influencers across Canada or the USA.
Have you ever done an influencer campaign and gotten awesome results out of it? Please share!
