You’ve heard this before and will continue to hear it: When it comes to blogging, quality content is key. In order for a company’s blog to be successful, marketers must consistently generate new, compelling, and informative posts.
Consistently creating valuable blog content can be challenging, so it’s important that marketers take advantage of all avenues that can assist them. One source for blog content creation that you might not have thought of is public relations.
A major reason why public relations professionals are well suited to help with blog content creation is that, by nature, PR pros are storytellers. Because they are more focused on liaising with the press, their writing style is less sales-y than marketing writing tends to be. They are accustomed to writing and delivering company messaging in a compelling and creative fashion.
If you or your company is working with a PR team or individual, be sure that whoever handles content creation regularly communicates with that team or individual regarding campaigns or projects they have in the works. Collaborating will only help on both fronts.
Boosting credibility and enhancing visibility is one of the main goals for PR professionals. You can use SEO-optimized blog posts to provide answers to the questions your audience is seeking in expert fashion. Many people search Google when they have questions, so having content that answers your audience’s questions is not only beneficial for increasing your company’s visibility, but also for becoming a thought leader.
Most news announced via traditional public relations efforts can be transformed into new content for your company blog. These announcements should be planned in advance as much as possible, so you can add them to your editorial calendar for blog content. Package the information creatively.
If the press announcement is that a company executive is speaking at a major industry event (INBOUND, for instance), you can interview that executive about their experience and key takeaways from the event. That creates a compelling blog post about a current industry event that features behind-the-scenes info. Most PR pros will be sure to note interesting moments at the event, and that can be combined with the Q&A to create something even more dynamic for your readers.
Speaking of photos and video, PR pros refer to these things as media assets. Photography, testimonials, market research, even great media placements in prominent publications can all be used to enhance or inspire new content for blog posts. Be sure to ask the person handling your PR to share whatever materials or assets they have to spruce up your content.
A strong PR professional or team will have established valuable relationships with reporters and bloggers. These relationships can be tapped into on the content side as well, specifically in the form of accessing guest bloggers. Utilize PR pros to understand who the leading online writers/bloggers in your field of expertise are, and leverage their relationships to get these influencers to create original content for your blog.
Guest bloggers are likely to publicize their own writing, so in addition to gaining new content, you may get the added benefit of them sharing their post with their networks, which opens your brand up to a new audience and further extends your blog’s reach.
Also, if your guest blogger has good name recognition, that will add credibility to your blog, which can help get other influencers to contribute and possibly lead to a guest blogging program. A program can have a snowball effect, leading to more and more original, compelling content and increased blog traffic.
These are just a few ways PR can help your blog content creation efforts. Do you have any additional PR tactics or tips that can help marketers develop new blog content?
This post was originally published on February 1, 2013, and was updated in February 2020.