Strategies for Technology PR
Let’s say you’re a baseball fan attending a sold-out game, and you are sitting right behind home plate (lucky you!); it’s the bottom of the 9th, and there are bases loaded with two outs…and the visiting team has a three-run lead.
Suddenly, a player you are not familiar with, who was just called up from the home team’s Triple-A franchise, hits a walk-off grand slam! The crowd erupts in cheers; just for fun, you look across the field and try to listen to the cheers of a single fan seated in straightaway centerfield.
Can you hear that one fan? Most likely, you cannot, given the commotion from the rest of the crowd. It is possible, though, that the single fan you are attempting to listen to is making him/herself heard via an extremely loud whistle that probably took years of practice before reaching such an ear-splitting level.
We have chosen this analogy to demonstrate the difficulty companies in the technology sector have when it comes to having their message heard through all of the noise so many other tech-based businesses are making at the same time. While it’s tremendously difficult to set your company apart from all the other actors in the technology industry, it is not impossible to get noticed –– all it takes is a single media outlet to notice what your company is doing.
There isn’t a day that goes by where technology companies (excluding Meta, Google, Cisco, and others considered to be “household names”) try to get media attention by standing out in a crowded field of competitors. If you are reading this blog post, chances are your business is looking for a new tech public relations strategy.
You’ve come to the right place.
Below are some of the tips and strategies that you might want to try out on behalf of your company. With a little batting practice, you just might be able to hit one out of the park this season. Batter up…
Stretch Your Brain Before the Game Begins
Before you start swinging for the fences, you should probably know a little more about what sets tech PR apart from other industries.
First, let’s look at the four main benefits of PR services:
- Builds Credibility and Brand Trust: The more attention a brand gets from media outlets, the more the public sees the brand as something worth paying attention to. This building block is key to any business, tech-related or otherwise, and earning that credibility and trust can happen at any point in time – not just in the start-up stage of a company.
- Projects An Image of Industry Leadership: You will be able to improve your chances of new conversions by updating your business’s communication channels frequently, as well as improving the stats of your website’s organic traffic via backlinks. All of these serve to position your company as an industry thought leader.
- Takes Control of Your Company’s Brand Image: Building a comprehensive public relations strategy for your tech company starts with making your audience aware that your business is NOT only interested in making money via sales, but rather all about solving problems.
- Grows Your Company’s Target Market: The two ingredients any company needs to increase revenues via marketing towards new stakeholders and strengthening relationships with existing ones; that combination breeds both industry authority and brand awareness.
Defining the Importance of Technology PR
So, given the benefits of public relations, what is Tech PR? Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Public Relations as “the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution[;] also: the degree of understanding and goodwill achieved. Insert “technology PR,” and you get arguably the most accurate definition of the term, but the definition isn’t as meaningful as why it’s essential for technology companies.
Words have power… and perhaps the only other industry for which that is keenly true is the medical/healthcare business sector, for which healthcare public relations strategies still differ from tech PR strategies. The obvious difference between general PR and technology PR is the unique language that the tech industry has created. Think of all the new words and different usage of existing ones that the tech sector has created: You can be “googled,” “friended,” or “tweeted about.” Merriam-Webster adds tech-related terms annually; InvestInTech.com Inc. included the following words and phrases that have been added to M-W’s dictionary in recent years due to meeting the criteria of “everyday use”:
- NSFW (abbreviation for “Not Suitable For Work”)
- Open Source
- Ping
- Clickbait
- Net Neutrality
- GIF
Obviously, the onus for educating the public, investors, customers, students, technology employees, and everyone else falls to PR professionals working in or for businesses in the tech sector.
You can also “speak” actual technology languages, such as Python, HTML, CSS, and more. There’s even an entry on Wikipedia that describes “Language Technology” in the following way:
Language technology, often called human language technology (HLT), studies methods of how computer programs or electronic devices can analyze, produce, modify or respond to human texts and speech.[1] Working with language technology often requires broad knowledge not only about linguistics but also about computer science. It consists of natural language processing (NLP) and computational linguistics (CL) on the one hand, many application oriented aspects of these, and more low-level aspects such as encoding and speech technology on the other hand.
As you can see, PR professionals in the technology sector would have quite a difficult time explaining what their inventions, products, platforms, or programs do without a heavy investment of time in educating their target audience. That alone would keep technology PR professionals busy! The vehicles for such an education to the masses who need to understand what a technology company is all about including press releases, website verbiage, videos, podcast topics, multimedia interviews and appearances, investor relations communications, and more.
Obviously, public relations folks in the technology sector have the usual tasks to take care of when it comes to their efforts to promote their businesses; that said, making sure the educational aspect of your company’s tech PR strategy is at the top of your to-do list.
The Time and Timing Challenge
It is hard, if not impossible, to name another industry in which change happens more rapidly than in technology. All tech PR strategies must keep in mind constant development, which is something that other industries don’t have to consider as heavily. Innovation seems to happen in a nanosecond; distinguishing a company’s news from its competitors is tremendously difficult, particularly for a tech startup; but honestly, the PR pros throughout the industry, save for the household names, struggle to get noticed.
The timing of releasing news is also cutthroat, given that so many other tech companies, at any given time, are rushing services and solutions to market that are similar, if not identical, in terms of the problems they solve for consumers.
For these two reasons, technology PR strategy requires a continual focus on agility that other industries lack. It’s one thing to finally move up to a “cutting edge” classification; staying that way is just as hard.
Building a solid public relations strategy through as many communications channels as possible can solve numerous problems for tech companies while saving money at the same time. Without adherence to such a strategy, your technology company can suffer in several ways, including:
- Attracting investors and/or funding
- Expanding the user/customer base
- Hiring the most talented employees
- Becoming more visible in and out of the industry
Obviously, continual promotion via all kinds of media coverage is key to avoiding harm to a tech company; here is where press release distribution comes into play.
Write. Release. Repeat.
Repetition is an enormous factor in the human learning process. If your business commits to a consistent press release distribution strategy, coupled with sending your press releases to a hand-picked group of journalists, familiarity will set in. When reporters or editors see your company’s name often enough as they search the wires for news to shine a spotlight on, the better your chances of eventually breaking through.
In addition to distribution, you can also offer up members of your team who can speak to reporters and editors about important news that gives other tech companies a lot of headlines. Always position your CEOs, CTOs, and any other C-Level execs as industry experts when big tech news stories break.
Let’s say a major retail outlet is hacked, and the personal information of millions of customers has been compromised. You don’t necessarily need to know from a previous hacking experience what to do; however, if your technology company is in the IT Security and Compliance sector, your CEO could provide helpful insight for readers, viewers, and listeners. That can sometimes function as the best kind of exposure for your technology business.
Jumpstart Your Tech PR with ACCESSWIRE
As previously mentioned, a continual stream of press releases to select journalists who cover your sector is imperative to gaining familiarity that will hopefully lead to making your company one of those household name businesses. ACCESSWIRE’s affordable flat-fee pricing and its far-reaching network of media outlets can be your press release distribution solution to breaking through the wall of notoriety. To schedule a free demo of our press release distribution services, click here!
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