PR Talk with PR Professionals – Digital PR

If you look from a broader spectrum, Digital PR is an extension of Traditional PR; no bummer, right? Traditional PR revolves around networking with journalists from print publications (like newspapers and magazines), radio and television; in the same way Digital PR involves online and e-based mediums like websites, blogs, social media platforms. The basic aim of Digital PR and Traditional PR is to increase the awareness and hype about brands, and that’s what counts.

Attendees of The PR Talk:

Recently, I had a chance to host some astounding professionals from PR industry of Pakistan where Hasan Zuberi (Founder President – Council of PR Pakistan), Salaar Suleyman (PRO – Zameen), Arsalan Shah (Founder/CEO Seedo and Director GAME), Faheem Mujahid (GM Operations & Business Development – Blue Communications) and Ammar Muzaffar were present in the discussion. The discussion revolved around good and bad practices of Traditional PR and Digital PR. Some insightful information was shared from everyone which was largely based on their personal experiences and observations from the Pakistan’s PR industry.

L2R: Shaiq Siddiqui, Faheem Mujahid, Salaar Suleyman, Arsalan Shah, Hasan Zuberi, Ammar

Digital PR and The ROI

Digital PR is still in its early phase in Pakistan, in such a scenario numerous practices are followed but out of those a few hit the bull’s eye. This is exactly what Salaar Suleyman mentioned in the discussion, according to him “it is crucial to understand and analyze the element of ROI when any Digital PR activity is planned. It is integral to gauge the impact of roped celebrity or social media influencer, whether the brand will get positively benefited from that endorsement…” now that’s something which is very true. I have personally seen most of brands’ Digital PR strategy to include celebrities which in no way come closer to the target audience of those brands and hence the conversion rate is anything but lucrative. Relevance and conversion are the most significant elements, never take them for granted.

Relevance Over Numbers

Arsalan Shah pointed out the malpractices followed in the Digital PR sector and how to minimize them, according to him “Digital PR practitioners and agencies should follow the best practices which are followed internationally. Hitting the right audience with the right message and brand can give better results. Publications with pertinent audience for the brand should be locked rather than going for those which do have huge following but irrelevant audience.” Another interesting point, it is practiced widely in Pakistan that PR agencies engage social media platforms and online publications based on hefty following rather than identifying the relevance and niche of those; plus, the engagement on those posts are not so encouraging. The background research needs to be a little accurate in such cases. He also added “We should upgrade ourselves with the tech paradigm shift we are going through, if we won’t we will be phased out.”

Power of Saying ‘No’

Hasan Zuberi also shed some light on right resource for the right task by saying “One should know when to say a ‘No’ and if you think you cannot do a task and are not capable of doing the justice with it then it is advised to either excuse politely or connect with someone who can do add value to the task.” He also added that “PR is all about being accessible and approachable to everyone.”

These are just a few excerpts from the discussion which was held at Round About on 30th Jan, 2020, in Karachi. Another discussion of the same sort is planned for February too and it is expected that more interesting concerns and topics will be discussed in the upcoming PR Talk.

Digital PR TALK – Glimpses From The Discussion

If you are a PR enthusiast or professional and want to attend the next discussion with more speakers on selective topics then please get in touch with me.