The weather is getting warmer, birds are chirping in the trees and wildflowers are deep in bloom. What does this have to do with your public relations plan? Quite a lot! The wonderful things that remind us of spring can teach us a lot about forming a solid PR strategy and spreading the word about your business. Read on to find out how raindrops, farmer’s markets, planting flowers and spring cleaning can inform your next public relations campaign.

Spring into Public Relations!

Raindrops Keep Fallin’

Without spring rain, we’d be in for a desert-like summer. Although many people prefer to stay dry, rain has its benefits. The inconveniences of getting wet aside, precipitation is a vital part of life and these days, social media is as well. Rain teaches us these public relations lessons that we can apply to a social campaign:

• Begin with a Drizzle:

  When announcing a new product, service or sharing company news, begin to tease your audience before the big reveal. You need only look at thedroughts around the country to see the effects of no rain. Weather, like a good social media strategy, works best when there’s diversity, in the form of posts with varied content. There’s no need to inundate your followers with updates when a steady trickle (or drizzle) will do just fine.

• Monitor Changes Over Time:

  Remember the last time you saw on the news that we broke the record for the most rainfall in a given month? Weather experts keep track of rainfall, sunshine and temperature in any given location and can compare data to previous years’ information.

  

  Take a PR lesson from the rain.

Like a meteorologist, collect as much available information as possible about your social media campaign’s performance, so you can learn from mistakes and move forward with strategies that are working well. Sites like Facebook have great built-in analytics that can help you see changes and patterns over time, increase your fan engagement by responding quicker to messages and even see which posts are receiving the most views and shares.

• Prepare for the Flood:

  Although sometimes you should only provide followers with a steady drizzle of updates, there are times when you should increase the rainfall. For example, if you have an important company event coming up, you should focus more on crafting updates geared toward the event than normal.

You can also ride the flood wave by joining the larger conversation. Viral videos, shareable memes and funny images flood social media newsfeeds; take advantage of these trends to gain visibility and prepare for your competition to do so as well.

Get Gardening!

In many ways, crafting a public relations campaign is a lot like careful gardening. You tend to your campaign and take carefully planned steps, much the way you’d tend to a vegetable garden. From creating diverse content to planning ahead based on seasonal trends, there are many things we can apply to both gardens and public relations.

-Use the Right Tools

There’s no sense in tending to your garden without the necessary tools, let alone the incorrect ones. Your PR strategy is no different; approach each task with the right tools in hand and the skills to use them. There are tons of free resources available that could help save time and effort with things like posting to social media, monitoring results and more. See some great tools here in our blog post.

-Add Diversity

A healthy garden plot is one that has a wide variety of plants, similarly to how diversity is needed in the greater ecosystem. By using many different types of content on your social media channels and sharing helpful advice for your fans and customers, your PR strategy will be as healthy as a bountiful garden.

-Do Some Weeding

When rain falls, you’re just as likely to grow a weed as you are flowers or vegetables. When this happens, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Weeds make it harder for the desirable plants to grow. Identify the weak points and unwanted weeds in your social media strategy. Is the information you’re providing relevant, timely or useful?  Are you posting during the right time of day and on the right day of the week to reach your target audience?  Dig deep to get results.

Time for Some Spring Cleaning

While spring cleaning is synonymous with housework and garage sales, it can also be of great value to a business. Spring cleaning is another seasonal activity that can help improve your next public relations campaign. Here are some tips:

• Prioritize Your To-Do List:

  In order to tackle projects quickly and effectively, it can help to prioritize and organize your to-do list. Spring is the best time of year to get yourself into this habit. If you don’t rank the importance of your to-do list, you’ll end up doing what you find easiest while delaying the consequential stuff. Disorganization can produce stress and mistakes.

• Check Up on Your Influencers:

  Why not pair spring cleaning with a regular check-in to see what top journalists and influencers in your industry are up to? Like keeping up with a networking contact, you should check in and read reporters’ stories often to stay current on industry trends.

• Evaluate Your Website:

  When was the last time your website had a makeover? This spring, your site may be in need of a little spruce up. If it’s been a while since you last updated it, it could be missing some key features essential to compete in today’s business world, like being mobile-friendly. Also ask yourself, “Does it have a call to action on every page?” What about links to your social profiles? For more help, read our blog post on tips for your website re-design.

• Dust Off Your Marketing Plan:

  From keeping better track of your marketing budget to incorporating new tactics, spring serves as a good reminder to look at what works well and what could be added to a current marketing strategy. A great tactic to consider is blogging, if your business is not already doing so, as it can help increase your site’s SEO and online visibility.

• Be Thorough:

  Now is the time to clean the baseboards, wipe the window sills and empty the gutters; since spring cleaning only comes once a year it’s important to be as thorough as possible. Just like you’d pay attention to details in your home, you should also turn a sharp eye toward your online presence. Check social media channels to make sure all business profiles are current and consistent, messaging is on-brand and you are engaging with fans frequently. If you’ve neglected to refresh your online profiles, now is a good time to start.

Create Buzz

Wildflowers bloom in abundant quantities each spring and they wouldn’t be able to complete their life cycle without the help of bees. Swarming around and creating a buzz in the air, read on to learn how bees can improve your public relations strategy.

-Elect a Queen (Or King!)

Having a strong leader in charge of your public relations campaign is essential for making sure all aspects go off without a hitch. Elect a point person, similar to the way bees elect a strong queen as their leader, for best results. Whoever you choose to control things like your social media accounts should have a strong head on their shoulders and be able to make decisions for the good of the company.

-Create Brand Ambassadors

Like the busy buzzing bees, brand ambassadors serve to create hype and engage in positive conversations about your company. They are people who love your brand and embody its spirit all while having conversations and connecting with others on social media. Instead of having to employ each of these individuals, you may be able to harness the power of your connections to create them yourself. Your existing fans and customers are you best asset for doing this as they humanize your product and make it more accessible; ask them for testimonials and encourage them to share your content with others.

Going to the Farmer’s Market

Seasonal farmer’s markets also begin in spring; the hustle and bustle of pedestrians, artists and local farmers is an enjoyable part of spring weekends. These unique marketplaces can improve your public relations strategy, as long as you:

• Know Your Niche:

  From local photography to homemade items, when you walk down the rows of booths at the farmer’s market, it’s easy to tell which vendors specialize in certain things. I’m sure seasons of trial and error went into determining which offerings produced the strongest results for each farmer. Pay attention to how customers respond to your products and make changes accordingly; you’ll find the perfect niche to corner the market.

• Put Your Best Foot (Fruit!) Forward:

  In order to stand out, vendors at the farmer’s market need to put their best foot forward and focus on creating a visually-appealing booth to draw customers in. As Dwight from ‘The Office’says, you have to put the “money beets” in front, and display the most beautiful fruit in order to attract people to buy. Use this as one of your PR lessons and showcase your best work at all times.

• Get Personal:

  One of the charming quirks about a local market is the personal connection you can make. Knowing your local farmer or florist gives your purchases a special vibe and it’s easy to build brand loyalty when you know your vendor by name. This is one of the easiest lessons for businesses to apply; incorporate tactics to connect with your followers personally on social media or in your physical store location.

From gardening to raindrops and beekeeping to farmer’s markets, there are many public relations lessons to be learned this season. How have you used spring’s hallmark events to inform your business’ strategy? Please share in the comments below!