In the past, traditional Lakeland public relations include writing press releases and distributing it to media outfits, journalists, and the general public. It’s all about cultivating a good relationship with the journalists, so they’ll give your press releases the time of the day. It’s about negotiating with publishers and hoping they’ll give your PRs even one column of their highly valued newspaper space. 

Public relations has changed significantly in the course of the last decade. Although the distribution of press releases is still central to the main goals of public relations, it is now being complemented by the internet and social media. According to studies, one in four Americans gets their news from social media. For those in the PR profession, that makes it easier for them to reach out to their audience. There is also a metric by which they can measure the impact of their press releases. 

The primary goal of a PR team is to raise awareness about their cause. They don’t pay for the ad space. They don’t do marketing for the sake of selling an idea or their company’s causes. They want to genuinely interest journalists in asking questions and seeking answers. But in order to do that before, they go the long route of disseminating press releases and talking with publishers, editors, and journalists. 

Measuring Success

Prior to the digital age, measuring a campaign’s performance is almost impossible. How can you measure how many people read your press release? How can you measure the emotions of the readers? Today, tracking the response of your audience is as easy as checking how many followers you have on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As for the reaction? You’ll get that through the smiley and sad faces on your Facebook posts, as well as the angry and love reactions. 

Google Analytics gives you so much more, too. You can track a campaign’s success by measuring traffic coming to your website. You can also track bounce rates, conversion rates, user demographics, and so much more. You can see all these with one click of a button. Your site’s dashboard will contain all the information and metrics you need to determine your next course of action. 

So, really, Lakeland public relations is unlike anything we have been used to when we were younger. The digital age changed it. More so that it will change in the future because of new technology, tools, programs, and algorithm designed to bring more potential customers to your business.