How to Empower Public Relations with Artificial Intelligence

When it comes to marketing, a lot of subconscious biases influence customer decision-making significantly. Among the more well-known biases are fear of missing out, anchoring bias, authority bias, and, perhaps most significantly, social proof.

When it comes to social proof, the top three areas where you can gain an advantage over your competition are testimonials, case studies, and public relations (PR). Brands use public relations to expand their audience, increase their exposure, and ultimately establish themselves as the go-to in their sector.

While the human touch will always prevail, there are numerous ways in which we can all strategically use artificial intelligence (AI) to create more efficient and effective public relations campaigns.

As technology advances, many businesses are looking to artificial intelligence to assist in streamlining repetitive operations and identifying opportunities for efficiency gains.

The public relations industry is no exception, with organizations exploring methods to leverage artificial intelligence for specific elements of the business that could benefit from AI capabilities.

While the prospect of utilizing AI can be concerning for those in public relations who fear their positions will be replaced by programmable technology, this is not the case.

How to embrace artificial intelligence

Public relations organizations can profit from the usage of artificial intelligence, particularly when it comes to the sheer volume of data they must sort.

Public relations agencies must always stay on top of the newest trends and news, which may be a time-consuming effort for personnel, with information being missed due to the sheer volume of available information or becoming buried in irrelevant data.

By leveraging artificial intelligence, businesses may rapidly search through all accessible material across any digital platform and extract any content that is important to their clients by programming the bot to look for specific terms or phrases. This will ensure that only the most critical content is marked for the public relations firm.

Additionally, AI may be used to monitor media coverage of competitors’ products and clients’ competitors in order to verify that their clients are reacting appropriately or receiving their fair amount of media coverage with their own campaign. AI bots can be used to track media impressions for both a public relations firm’s own clients and their competitors.

Not only can artificial intelligence be used to monitor media coverage for clients by scanning news coverage, but it can also be used to monitor any trends in themes that the public relations agency wishes to stay ahead of. Artificial intelligence will be able to determine the optimal time of day for press releases, social media posts, and other avenues of engagement with their target audience based on when people interact with the information and which platform or mode of communication receives the most interaction through its automated process of scanning information.

This will provide data that the public relations firm may use to guarantee they are reaching their target client in the most effective manner possible. The data gathered can assist public relations professionals in making recommendations about which channels to use to distribute their message, how the content should be constructed, and even what type of information to include.

The benefits of AI in public relations are numerous.

Apart from information scanning and data sorting, artificial intelligence offers a plethora of other applications in public relations. It may be used to produce preliminary press releases and even to develop websites by programming the bot to gather and compile data using specified methods. AI may select the most pertinent material to include in a press release based on audience interaction and modify future press releases to grab and maintain an audience’s attention through data analysis. The benefits of AI in public relations are vast, and new applications are being discovered all the time as technology advances and evolves in response to business needs.

One of the major anxieties associated with automation and the application of artificial intelligence in any business or industry is, of course, the fear of job loss. While it may appear as though artificial intelligence would remove jobs, this is not the case in the public relations sector.

This business continues to rely heavily on the human touch for face-to-face customer interactions, social networking, and delivering insights and recommendations on how to effectively utilize the data acquired through AI. Indeed, artificial intelligence will enable public relations professionals to focus on tasks that cannot be automated, such as brainstorming creative ideas, determining the best course of action for their clients, and working closely with them, rather than on repetitive tasks that currently detract from client interactions.

Artificial intelligence is not anything to be afraid of in public relations. It is a tool to adopt in order to increase data collection efficiency, allowing staff to focus on their clients and the innovation inherent in their sector.