If you’re anything like me then you’re more than likely always looking for ways to simplify your life, whether that’s delegating day to day tasks, having a carpool for the school run or putting systems in place to make your business run more smoothly, we all seem to be hot in the pursuit of more time.
This got me to thinking about how you can utilise PR and communications to simplify your business. Here are some ways that you can use PR and Comms to make things run more smoothly and get your message across more effectively.
Before I start remember PR and Communications refers to how you communicate with everybody you come into contact with, this could be people following you on social, your team, customer, people you meet at networking and so on.
Helpful tips
· Keep it simple.
Keep all communication simple. Why use 100 words when 10 will do. Too much information can dilute your message and take away from your key points. By keeping it simple your message will be understood by a wider audience. People shouldn’t need a degree or understand business jargon to understand what your business is about.
· Scheduling
Use a scheduling tool to manage your social media. This will mean you can upload batches of content to go out over the week/month so you’re not there scratching your head each day thinking about what to post. You will still need to do some ad-hoc posting if something that is of importance to your industry occurs but on the whole, you can save time by planning your social media in advance.
· Repurpose content.
Make the most of your content. If you get interviewed on radio or your business is mentioned in a magazine or newspaper let people know. Repurpose your blog content to create social media posts. Most content can be used more than once.
· Get a good elevate pitch.
In terms of attending organised events, I’m not a huge networker but one thing I have learnt about networking is you need a great elevator pitch or 60 seconds where you can explain what you do in a succinct but informative way.
· Get a simple customer feedback process.
If you collate customer feedback keep the process as simple as possible. People are short of time and are more likely to leave feedback if it can be done as quickly as possible. This could be an email with a few simple questions or feedback via text or simply asking customers to leave a review and send them the link.
· Team Comms
Look at how you communicate with your team. You could consider things like Slack, Trello, newsletter, or a WhatsApp group (although with this you may need guidelines as to when people use it, it may be considered intrusive to be contacting the team about work on a Saturday night or out of work hours.
What are your most effective ways of communicating?
Rebecca Slater is a PR Consultant with more than 20 years public relations experience. She is based in Staffordshire and provides support to businesses all over the country.
Find out more at www.beckandcallpr.co.uk or email sayhello@beckandcallpr.co.uk