With such a competitive news agenda, bustling your way to front of the crowd can be a tricky – and sticky – business. Journalists receive endless emails. Breaking stories spring up and override everything else. Other stories get stuck in the pipeline.
The tech PR world is also full of ‘groundbreaking innovations’ and ‘the next big thing’. So, how do you get creative with your stories? And it’s not just getting creative with your stories, but how do you go about getting them out there? Many tech leaders are sitting on goldmines but need a way to spice up their news content and brand awareness.
Other than pure play PR, remember you can also get creative with the attention you are trying to get. It doesn’t always have to result in just traditional media coverage. From social media traction to making business connections online, PR is also evolving into a highly digital enterprise.
- Identify what you want to promote
There is still truth in the adage that the product or story speaks for itself. A genuinely compelling story that has had a noticeable impact on a sector or society will grab headlines by its own merit. But there is danger in resting on your laurels and believing your work alone can do the talking. For most stories, how they are told is even more important – they don’t cut it by themselves.
You could have many facets about yourself, your business and your product, but not know what to promote or where to start. Pick your niche and core message as well as the audience pain point. Decide if you are promoting a specific campaign, purpose or planning to generate wider brand awareness. Of course, there is overlap, but honing in on an area can plant the seeds for creativity.
- Be trendy: take your inspiration and find the link
Trends have always been about, but never have they taken hold and spread so quickly.
Trends have always been about, but never have they taken hold and spread so quickly.
You get the gist.
Carrying out ‘trend analysis’ is a really good way of finding inspiration, understanding what will land and tying this into your audience. What stories are trending in the media? What reels are trending on social media? Can you latch onto a trend, link it to the idea or campaign you want to promote, but then also advance it in some way?
And then, more specifically, what are people in your industry commenting on? What are the pain points they express? What should you avoid? The more you can understand current trends and relate them to your own audience, the more you can create stories that will resonate with them.
- Mix and match ideas
When deciding on story themes and topics, there are specific areas your business operates in, broader areas and related areas. For example, you could be an AI company working with autonomous vehicles. More broadly, you could look at different modes of transport and technology, and related areas could be AI ethics, public events, urban planning and the environment.
You can mix and match a whole variety of themes to come up with either related concepts or totally opposite ones. Both work well, but going against the grain can create surprising and creative comparisons.
While more on the marketing side, WWF created an image charting the changing of Twitter’s iconic bird logo over the years until it became X in 2023, a superbly simple but effective analogy for the extinction of our wildlife.
- Back yourself
With all of this to hand, you then need to pick one of your ideas – and back yourself.
First AML, for example, recently took the iconic ‘Guess Who?’ game and transported it into the world of money laundering. They sent the game to journalists, but instead of identifying what colour hair their opposite player’s person has, journalists would flip up notorious money launderers. Rather than directly aiming for media coverage, this was a creative attempt to garner journalists’ attention to the company and its message.
If your creative idea doesn’t go exactly to plan, it is still a valuable exercise. You can gauge what worked, what missed the mark, and how you can build on this moving forward. It will only put you in better stead for the next one. You just have to go for it.
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