305 | The Evolution of PR with Donna Cravotta

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Donna Cravotta

The Evolution of Public Relations (PR) has been needed for years now. In fact, I still get nearly 100 pitches per month from people requesting to be on my show. 99% of them are old-school approaches. It is rare that any of them actually take the time to do anything specific for me. The guest today is Donna Cravotta with Social Pivot PR. Donna shares her wisdom on the changes in the industry and what that means for you.

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Target Audience: At Social Pivot PR, a combination of social media, PR and SCO with the intention of building relationships is the aim. The company helps it’s clients connect with those you really want to connect with for their business. The evolved version of PR is not using social media as a broadcast tool but a connection- relationship- building- tool and a business intelligence tool. Social Pivot PR teaches their clients to listen strategically in order to find the opportunities they’d ordinarily miss. The company PR serves small businesses, small business owners, thought leaders, and larger companies.

Taking Ownership

Organizations need to own their own voice. There is something lost in the translation when you hand off the message to an outside consultant. According to Donna, It needs to be someone who is part of the day to day operations that understands how all the different pieces intersect.

Social Pivot PR teaches them how to use social media and then shows them a strategy. Social or online strategy is built around the businesses’s objective. The social/online strategy not only supports the goals of the business but will also help to achieve them.

Each Company Is Their Own Media  

With the internet and social media, we all have the ability to be our own media outlets. We can create content and we listen to the people we want to connect with online who are searching for specific things. By creating structure around that, we can create content based on what our market is already asking for. This format escalates you pretty quickly on the thought leadership category.

 

How Does One Listen to Social Media?

Listen to the people you want to connect with. One of the ways could be this: take a speaker page from an event that you would like to speak at. Research the speakers, check out where else they are speaking, the workshops they are giving, etc. This gives you a framework of what your industry is looking for. Through that, you can start to craft content that addresses those issues

Answer the Public

Another tool called “Answer the public” pulls information from google searches. Based on how people pose questions when they do internet searches, it is placed into different buckets of categories. People that are searching for “HOW” questions are usually the DIY crowd. People that are searching for why questions are usually the decision makers. This is a free tool that you can use to come up with topics and titles. It can also help you target your ideal customers since it will reveal ways of tailoring your content in your social media posts.

Sharpening Up What We Are Going To Say

You can’t accomplish this without listening first. Otherwise – you’re just guessing! You don’t get many results from guessing. And when people create content, they are often doing it by themselves.

You might think it’s a great idea, but no one else does. it’s about using the right keywords. Sometimes it’s about turning a phrase which often determines being found or not being found. When you do this, everything else becomes easier.

Focusing the Goals

What do you plan to achieve in the next 3-6 months? This foundational question is what we build around. We focus on creating evergreen content that can be used over and over again. The other way we organize goals is around time: Are you speaking at an event? Are you launching a book? Do you have something specific coming out on a specific day? Are you marketing something for a specific date on the calendar?

 

The Most Critical Factor

Relationships, relationships, relationships! We don’t pitch for clients. We build in them the assets they need and we teach them to pitch so they can build their own relationships. In this way, the relationships they build are theirs!

Practical and Actionable:

Build a relationship first before you pitch. Be present in the conversation that is already going on.

Resources

How is your business going…would you like to talk about it?

I love my audience of listeners. I really do. I would love to help you in some way. I started doing calls with listeners and realized that it was a great way to understand you.

Okay, then I formalized the process to offer a Results Roadmap… it is a private one-on-one call with me about your business. I want to help you see your roadmap with more clarity and confidence. Find out more about the Results Roadmap (it takes you to my personal website). This is not a sales pitch. Let me serve you.

A QUICK FAVOR

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