This lovely piece is an outcome of my lectures at Bahcesehir University on Data Driven Reputation Management. My student Leyla Naghiyeva wrote this article and I am happy to share it..
Why data is so important for PR?
Data-Driven Communication / PR and Machine Learning
Communication based on data is a highly demanded direction in marketing now because technology allows you to collect data about users, analyze it, and, thanks to this, you can target communications to very narrow audiences. Also, such solutions are most widely represented in the PR/advertising agency industries nowadays. In today’s world marketing companies and different businesses often face failure, but they cannot analyze the process and evaluate it due to lack of data, so it results in loss and leaves companies with blank minds. Fortunately, in accordance with technological advancements, the digital world provides us the tools and capabilities to assess the impact of our public relations activities and avoid these predicaments. Analyzing the PR efforts and processes with the help of collected data allows PR agencies to move forward with clear and confident minds and strengthen the relationships with the businesses that agencies work with as well, which makes the efforts sustainable.
The most effective communication is built on trust and credibility, and PR workplaces are in favor of making actions that result in the enhancement of the reputation and image of the company. The culture and rules of the workplace are important for both, manager and his/her followers, as good results and profits increase the motivational level of workers. In order to establish this workforce, it is crucial to build PR campings with a clear picture in mind and set up the steps of the campaign with confidence. Here comes the importance of Data Analysis which is a powerful tool that is projecting and planning the camping first and secondly, the insights of data analysis can also be used to mitigate unexpected threats and improve your services. If a company understands the value of data analysis for the PR industry and uses it properly, it may position the agency in much better places than others who do not and produce better and impactful results. Data holds the key. The data you collect, utilize, and present reveal your skills as a public relations professional.
We all know that digitization is in almost every aspect of our lives today and the impact of social media is enormous and has proliferated in our lives. A huge amount of heterogeneous data is generated on social media every day which possibly are: structures, social graphs, contents, articles, visuals and etc, besides you can monitor and evaluate the interaction level and analyzing them. It gives the authorization to reveal the moods of people, the relationship between them, their preferences for PR agencies which will help to build more effective communication. It involves data mining, which involves algorithmic analysis and this will necessitate the use of machine learning techniques. A form of artificial intelligence: «Machine learning is the process that occurs in computers when they develop a pattern recognition engine, or the ability to continuously learn from predictions, the ability to make such predictions from data, and the ability to make appropriate adjustments without any additional programming.»
Instead of doing coverage tracking manually, which is not a lot of fun for the staff and long-term work, machine learning has the potential to automate a significant amount of this labor, letting your employees be more creative or spend their time getting fresh coverage rather than reporting on previous hits.
How machine learning can help?
Did you ever think about how your own thoughts were reflected back at you through product advertisements? For instance, let’s talk about Facebook, it is for sure that the majority of us encountered posts that advertise the products or the brand that we were searching for or visited the site more than once. By understanding how people consume the information and by evaluating their interests, companies strategically position the product and advertise it. Basically, they are sharing the content according to your user data. Moreover, implementing machine learning on online platforms is an also effective tool, for example, online chats on websites: by processing and analyzing the most frequently asked questions it generates an immediate response to them. Thanks to this, marketers can focus more on requests of clients that demand more personalized responses, while the common questions and requests are being handled automatically. Furthermore, machine learning allows PR companies to save their time on deciding and producing their content and visual things on their websites as such AI provides a service that quickly recognizes what messages and content will perform in the best way across your digital channel. And last but not least, it helps you to save time for other important things and spend less time on developing content strategy by measuring the performance and engagement rates of existing content. Consequently, the benefits of machine learning in communications and PR are really exemplary and faultless enough to use it. It allows you to spend less time on decision-making processes and guarantees you good results.
Conclusion
All things considered, we cannot deny that the significance of Data in Public Relations continues to grow every day. It adds value to the given service and improves the image of the company. Moreover, data in PR help to find better solutions and establish successful strategies.
By Leyla Naghiyeva /Bahcesehir University
