10 Yetis Insight Blog - How To Choose Between PR, Social Media and Video For Your Digital Campaign

Public relations is much more now than it once was. Some people will even go as far as to say that PR in itself needs a re-brand, because activity is broader than ever; often encompassing social media, video, search engine optimisation (SEO) and more.

But how does a company choose whether it's PR, social media or video that's best or needed most for their digital campaign? There are a few factors to consider here, but ultimately it comes down to the objectives of the campaign.

Target Audience

First of all, you need to take a look at the message you want to convey with your digital campaign and the target audience. The demographic that you're looking to reach with your campaign will help you to determine which method, or methods, you should use. For example, if the target audience is 18-25 year old males, this would immediately tell me that social media should be at least one aspect of your activity. This age group uses Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope and plenty of other platforms to consume information and look for stuff that they might find interesting, funny or engaging, so not considering social media as part of your digital campaign would be a mistake.

The target audience can offer big clues on what type of activity you should be including in your digital campaign, so always use that as a starting point in the planning stages.

Content

If you already have some content that you want to be at the centre of your digital campaign, like an infographic or images, you can use this to determine what type of activity you should be carrying out to maximise results.

Perhaps the "content" is more to do with the message you want to portray, in which case a video might lend itself well to the campaign. Videos are sharable and very "sticky" in the sense that they engage people for longer than other pieces of content might, which is often why journalists favour them and are more likely to run pieces with an accompanying video. They'll want readers to stay on their pages for longer, so video is great for that.

It's worth bearing in mind that videos usually have to be one of three things to work effectively: funny, heart-warming or intriguing. If your message fits into one of these categories, you're probably on to a winner if you use video.

Objectives

What methods you use for your digital campaign can be determined by the objectives. If the number one priority is to get links or to improve SEO, then PR should be the main focus; targeting online sites. However, for this to be most effective, you will also need some strong content to host on your website (or your client's website) that will encourage links back from media outlets. Whether this is a video, some kind of quirky widget or a different piece of content is up to you, but it's best to have something hosted on your site so that journalists have a reason to link to it.

Budget

The amount you have to spend may well dictate what activity you can and can't do. Perhaps you'll only be able to afford PR or social media, as opposed to both. You'll need to work out what budget you have to put towards your digital campaign and then get quotes and costs from different agencies to compare. Fees vary wildly, and what a London agency charge for just a basic PR campaign might buy you PR, social media and video production services elsewhere. Shop around before signing a contract.

Summary

So, if you haven't worked out just yet from this blog post how to choose between PR, social media and video for your digital campaign, the answer is quite simple. To give your campaign the best chance of delivering results (and I mean real, credible results) you're going to really need all three; or, at a minimum, PR and social media.

These kind of cross platform campaigns which involve different strategies and elements are becoming the norm in the digital communications sector now and, with this in mind, you shouldn't be choosing but rather embracing PR, social media and video.