The most effective PR professionals today are true spin-doctors: general practitioners with an ability to take a 360-degree approach to their businesses and campaigns.

This is not “The Father of Spin” Edward Bernays style spin,  but rather a strategic process that looks at all available media channels and leverages each to drive deeper conversation and awareness around our clients’ messages, products, people and ideas.

Some PR practitioners continue to craft a press release and send it to everyone on their media list. However, this blanket approach rarely garners the amount of attention that thoughtfully crafted, unique proposals engender, prior to being widely distributed.

The most successful PR people take a strategic approach and identify which editor or publication would best tell the story and where to spark a groundswell of conversation.

Once you have the message crafted and released to the appropriate media you need to decide which social platforms could fuel this story.

While social media content development is a category all by itself, digital media must be fully integrated into your outreach for every campaign. We need to communicate with consumers on each platform with customized and personal messages crafted for their needs and thereby amplify the message way beyond traditional platforms like TV, print and even radio.

Conversely, every TV, print and radio public relations campaign should be maximized by crafting additional content and messaging for each relevant social media channel. Bear in mind that email blasts and the websites of top print publications are garnering as much traction as – if not more than – their print counterparts.

At VP+C many of our campaigns involve product launches and typically we need to tell a design story.  Maybe it’s a fashion story about floral prints that resonates on hipster gardening home blogs? Does that floral print inspire a Pinterest board and an Instagram campaign to celebrate spring and the new florals?

The PR target audience today is not only comprised of editors, the media and influencers.  It’s our job to lead and manage the consumer conversations taking place around the brand, use them to inform our strategy, and keep the dialog fresh, while adding to our exposure and influence.

Remember however, the story itself has to resonate. Smart journalistic text, honest news value, strong visuals, arresting facts and well-edited video content are keys to long and smooth sailing.

And on that note… take a look at this video