Think things get easier as you go along when it comes to PR and social media? That’s not necessarily true, unfortunately. In fact, some things get tougher as you go along, even though your knowledge and skills increase. But these factors inevitably will lead to challenges you never expected when you started out.
The funny thing is, this list doesn’t really bother newbies very much. They’re just inevitable outcomes of doing work and evolving your business. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t overcome them with some hard work and dedication.
Inspiration
You would think that figuring out what to put up every day and coming up with great campaigns would get easier as your business goes on and grows. Strangely, though, inspiration is often much easier to find when you first start your business.
It’s a phenomenon you see everywhere. In my home town a new sports franchise just popped up that brought people out of the woodwork. However, there was already a team in the town, one that had been around for years. The new guys just walked in and stole all sorts of thunder.
Something new is exciting, fresh, and full of promise – even if it’s exactly the same as what’s already there. It’s when you’re coming up with your fifth, tenth or thirtieth campaign that the real work comes in.
Figuring Out Your Audience
Business owners and PR people get stuck in ruts. This can even happen when you first start your business or even before. You think you know what the audience is for your campaign and nobody can tell you different.
The trouble with that is the more you hunker down the less likely you are to expand and find a potential new audience, even if one presents itself. A whole new niche could pop up and if you’re dead set in your ways you will ignore it.
There’s ALWAYS an opportunity to expand your audience. Always be on the lookout for a brand new section of the population to campaign to. Companies that get stuck in their ways stop evolving and growing.
Optimism
This is an intangible factor, but an important one nonetheless. Typically when you start a new venture or just start out in PR, you think everyone will work. Why wouldn’t you? You’re full of hope and dreams and other delightful stuff that makes you think everything will go your way.
Eventually that fades away. You become more realistic – it’s just not possible for every single campaign to succeed. It’s literally impossible. Even Coca-Cola had debacles like New Coke. Everyone fails at some point.
While naïve, that initial “just starting out” optimism is important. You want to maintain that exuberance and delight you get when the smallest thing goes your way. When’s the last time you truly got excited when you got over 100 Likes on a Facebook post? If it’s happened over and over, you might get numb to it. But once upon a time, that was your best day ever. Try to make your smallest victories like that again.
Which of these is your biggest problem?
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (http://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab your free 160-page copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry here: http://www.ereleases.com/offer/bigbook.html
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
