Public relations can be a tough discipline to master. The way you communicate with clients is constantly changing, and you may find that generating positive publicity is even more challenging in today’s digital age.
Most public relations professionals agree that the skills required for PR excellence are changing. According to one report, 88% of PR professionals say that strategic planning will be key to their role in the next five years, yet less than 21% say they feel comfortable working with data and analytics.
Get ahead of the game by learning how to research via internet search. Effective search skills can give you access to high-quality, insightful information in an age when many PR pros are turning to bland AI-generated content. Strong search skills increase your ability to leverage data analytics and enhance your evaluation efforts.
The Role of Research
Public relations is a research-driven profession. You need to be up to date with breaking news and changes in your industry if you want to remain relevant in the digital domain and beyond. Effective research can strengthen your brand and supercharge your PR strategy. A few specific, savvy searches will yield important information like:
- Target Audience: Researching your industry will help you get a clearer image of who, exactly, your target audience is. Focus on discovering key metrics like age and location while searching for psychographic data such as values, beliefs, interests, and lifestyle choices.
- Industry Trends: Industry reports and whitepapers can help you identify trends and make strategic changes to your PR strategy. Sites like Statista, Pew, and Our World in Data often provide free insights, which you can use to your advantage.
- Low-Cost Insights: Conducting consumer research can be costly and time-consuming. However, if you work in a big industry, you may find that leading consulting firms willingly publish much of their consumer research for free online.
- Authoritative Content: Trust is key to effective PR. Show that you know your industry inside out by foregrounding peer-reviewed, trustworthy research in your press releases and articles.
Reliable, trustworthy research should form the backbone of every press release you send to customers and clients. Well-informed PR content is much more likely to engage audiences and will ensure that your brand is regarded as a reputable source of information. You can maximize your chances of finding outstanding research and supercharge your next press release by learning how to search properly.
How to Search
As a PR professional, you should already be well acquainted with search engines like Google. However, have you ever paused to consider whether your search skills are up to par? If, like most people, you search without Boolean operators and a single head term, you’re probably missing out on the best results.
Other benefits of learning how to search correctly include:
- Improve your ability to self-edit.
- Increase your chances of finding trustworthy sites.
- Give yourself iterative, constructive feedback.
- Hone your research skills to find peer-reviewed sources.
You can start your journey towards better searching by brushing up on Boolean search phrases. Boolean operators, like “AND” and “OR”, refine your search parameters and help you parse out less useful results.
“OR” means you want to see either search phrase in the results. For example, “consumer holiday shopping trends” OR “consumer holiday shopping research” will show you pages that answer the latter query, as well as the pages that speak to the former query. The “AND” operator narrows it down to only pages satisfying both queries.
Boolean search strings are particularly useful if you’re searching through a site like JSTOR or Google Scholar and want to find research about a particular topic. Boolean phrases will cut out unrelated results and leave you with a niche list of potential candidates.
Vetting Sources
As a professional communicator, you should be able to spot unreliable sources that publish dubious information on the web. However, if you find yourself unsure of a site’s authenticity, you can use the EEAT approach to figure it out.
Expertise: Can the writer claim to have expertise on the subject matter? What credentials support this claim; do they clearly use non-biased data in their work?
Experience: Has the author had a lengthy career in the field they’re writing about? Do they have awards or commendations that suggest they are experienced enough to share meaningful insights?
Authority: Where is the content being posted? Is it a verifiable site that unmistakably employs editors or a dubious, new website with low traffic?
Trustworthiness: Are the claims cited? If so, are the citations recent and relevant to the topic the author is writing about? Trustworthiness is the most important criteria of all.
The EEAT method can help you sift through unreliable authors and find content that is well-researched and written with integrity. You can make this process even easier by toggling Google filters like “news” and “scholar” to find more results from reputable sites.
Conclusion
Mastering search skills is essential in the digital age. Effective search habits will help you find reputable, reliable information that you can use to craft engaging PR content for clients and customers.
Get the ball rolling by using more Boolean search strings and the EEAT method to parse out unreliable sources and find results that make a difference to benefit your next PR campaign.
Guest Contributor: Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie.
To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.
The copy and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Burrelles, our employees, partners or affiliates.
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Thank you for providing such well-written content on your website, kudos.