How Public Relations Can Boost Your Technology Brand
What is public relations?
Public Relations helps a brand or organisation generate exposure, attract buyers, exercise control over overall media publicity and protect your reputation as well as avoid potential PR disasters.
An effective Public Relations strategy allows you to control your media narrative. This works to increase your brand’s positive public sentiment, create marketing communications that resonate, use authoritative outlets and personalities to increase your share of voice, and use promotions and well-placed features to boost sales.
Why is Public Relations important for the technology sector?
The difference between a technology brand that gets noticed and a technology brand that goes under the radar is storytelling. Technology companies with the same products can make an impact through positioning. Think Samsung and Apple, OpenAI vs Anthropic, or Dyson and Shark. Similar products but the way we view and understand the companies is incredibly different, and it comes down to how the company finds and serves their audience.
The impact of earned media on technology brands
Earned media is integral for reaching your audience, as consumers trust third parties and recommendations from professionals, more than they trust self-promotional activities. This is more important than ever, as mentions from news sites can boost your brand’s position in search engine rankings and lead to your brand’s inclusion in AI-powered search engine recommendations.
Giving out gifted units is a great strategy for earned media, getting trusted reviews from professionals, which ultimately builds up trust in your consumers. A good example of this is Jackery Australia’s earned media strategy, with gifted products to journalists across minor and major news outlets, leading to the tick of approval across professionals such as Trevor Long.
The importance of getting involved in events and conferences
Getting involved in events and panels is a great way to get noticed, or to announce product launches. Attending tech conferences, and conventions, where stakeholders are already searching for new and upcoming tech brands, and demonstrations. By building relationships face to face, you can increase visibility of your brand, and solidify the reputation of your products. These are also a great way to generate content, speak with media journalists and position yourself as thought leaders in the sphere. You can showcase your values and expertise in person.
Why is crisis communications essential for a technology company?
It is also important to have a team that can act quickly in a crisis. A good example of the importance of having a crisis communications strategy in place, is the example of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 and the mishandling of the burning battery crisis. Consumer authorities called for the recall of the Samsung phones after they began catching on fire, and airlines banned people from bringing them on to planes. Samsung’s lack of crisis communications in the weeks following was devastating to their reputation, especially when the intensity of their market rivalry with Apple and Google. The process of exchanging the faulty phones was deemed complicated and information about the process was confusing, and when they did replace the product, some of those ended up catching on fire as well. The company faced their greatest branding crisis with a 15% drop in mobile sales and became a cautionary tale.
If Samsung had had a public relation crisis strategy in place, they could’ve been quicker to take accountability, and position themselves favourably in the minds of stakeholders and consumers, by transparently addressing the root of the issue.
Should you use a PR agency?
A PR agency brings the media relationships, the narrative expertise and the third-party credibility that are hard to build in-house, particularly when consumers trust journalists and professional reviewers far more than they trust a brand’s own promotion.
An agency can secure earned media that boosts your search visibility and your chances of being recommended by AI-powered search engines. An agency can use their media relations and a gifted product strategy that funnels trusted reviews by professionals into consumer confidence. They can coordinate and put you in front of the right people at events and panels, and integrate product launches into full campaigns which get media and consumer attention. Just as importantly, it is integral to have a public relations team ready to respond fast when something goes wrong, and serves to address reputation crises.
Whether you’re launching a new product, building awareness in a crowded market or protecting the reputation you’ve already earned, the right PR partner helps you control your narrative instead of leaving it to chance. If you’re ready to get your technology brand noticed for the right reasons, get in touch with our team at InsideOut PR to start the conversation.
By Ruby Harris | PR Coordinator @ InsideOutPR
