In a world where so many brands have a dominant voice online, it can be hard to cut through the noise sometimes and make your brand be heard. Reactive PR is however a tool that can be utilised to do so.
In a nutshell, what reactive PR actually means is being reactive to the ever-changing news agenda and hottest viral trends. This could be in the form of newsjacking or as simple as making a meme of last night’s Love Island dramatics.
This is very different to Proactive Public Relations, as this involves being more proactive by thinking ahead, so planning campaigns around key dates and events. This could be national days or individual to your industry, such as seasonal dates or key awareness days.
The great thing about Reactive PR is it’s reactive to the current news agenda, so there might be a lot of people talking about a story, but not necessarily a lot of content about it due to its freshness. So this means if you act quickly enough, you’ll be at the forefront of the viral conversation, and that means exposing your brand to potentially millions of people.
But this does comes with some caution, as thinking fast and reactively often goes against what we usually work towards as marketers (developing a strategy and action plan). But if done correctly, reactive PR can be a really successful tool to enhance your brand awareness and get you noticed.
Newsjacking
The most common form of Reactive PR is newsjacking – adding your thoughts or comments to breaking news stories.
This is great for a variety of sectors, so for instance, if your business is in the property sector, commentary about major shifts in the market or budgets and getting key spokespeople to comment on it as and when it is happening would work. When it comes to breaking news stories, journalists only have a short time to act, so adding a key spokesperson comment to press releases is a great way of adding another level of consumer trust.
You just need to be prepared and react quickly in order to gain coverage – otherwise, you face losing out to your competitors. If you know these types of stories are likely to be coming up, you can prepare some pre-written statements so that once it comes to light in the news, you’re ready to comment.
How can Reactive PR help your overall marketing strategy
Reactive public relations can not only elevate the reach of your content, but elevate your whole brand. As you’re being reactive to trends in your industry, you’re at the centre of the conversation and consumers will notice your reactiveness to trends and automatically position you as industry specialists.
It is also a quick win when it comes to marketing. As the news agenda moves so quickly if you’re able to tap into trending topics, you can potentially gain coverage in less than a few hours in the media by adding value to the conversation.
So, if you’re pumping a lot of resource into planned campaigns but not receiving much exposure, then this can add another layer to your strategy that will deliver extra brand awareness.
Tools for Reactive PR campaigns
With Reactive PR, you need to be reactive right? So you need to act fast, this is the value of social listening tools.
It will allow you to set up alerts for certain topics/industries, identify viral trends, or many news stories that have hit the headlines online – all in real-time. This can also allow you to monitor brand mentions and conversations for when your newsjacking content goes live to see the effectiveness of the campaign or if your angle needs to be changed.
Why do a lot of brands struggle with Reactive PR?
A lot of big brands get it right, I’m sure we’ve seen the typical advertising posts across our social feeds of Tweets or ads from KFC, M&S, or Amazon.
But, it’s important to note these brands that have big budgets and resources – which makes it a lot more manageable.
Juggling all areas of the marketing and PR mix is a lot of work, so if you’re wanting to dive into the world of Reactive PR and marketing, then pairing with an experienced agency is the best approach (that’s us)!
At Prohibition, we work with various brands across all sectors, B2B and B2C to create innovative PR campaigns. For more interesting articles from us check out these posts:
- How to use social listening as part of your PR campaigns
- How to keep a proactive press office
- How to Build a Strong Brand through Public Relations
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