At our recent Think Tank event Beyond the hype, PR Director Bex Pearce took guests through the impact of AI on the PR industry and how best we can leverage it for media relations, filter out risks and reap rewards.
Using AI to uncover trends and inform news stories
This is a vast subject when related to media relations and where AI is providing efficiencies within each of those. The media loves proof and stories backed by data. By using your data (historical or recent), a survey, research, you can then use AI tools to analyse that data to identify trends and stand out figures which can aid the best angle for the news story. You may also get multiple stories from the same data set.
AI's role in providing in-depth, timely, and credible insights
The added depth to research which AI can bring to further inform a certain topic or news angle/story you are pursuing can’t be ignored. The internet, of course, can bring you multiple sources of information and reports, but honing in on the detail which asking further questions within AI tools can produce, will provide so much more to work with. You are also able to narrow down the results easily within certain time frames, find only recent research, data and reports and save a lot of time ensuring the information is the most up-to-date, credible and useful.
Finding the perfect media contacts with AI
AI can bring a new dimension to sourcing media contacts and aiding us with the most relevant journalists, influencers and outlets for specifically targeted stories, campaigns and niche topics to further the results of the media outreach. Different AIs have been trained on different pools of information, so asking the same questions might lead to different answers depending on which platform you use too, but this will ensure you’re getting wider results.
Topic research
Many AI trend trackers can help keep you staying relevant by giving you insights into popular talking points, hashtags, new media coverage and media sentiment, with some going as far as identifying anomalous data and predicting PR crises ahead of it happening. It is needless to say that this helps your brand not only stay relevant and build brand equity but also allows your PR team to be more reactive.
Predicting crises
The age old saying of ‘If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ couldn’t be more true of crisis management and although many businesses have a crisis management strategy ready to action should the need arise, being able to make the experience even more streamlined with the help of AI can’t be ignored. AI can assist in monitoring and responding to developing situations in real-time which helps organisations manage their reputation more effectively, see it as an additional team member. For example, the media monitoring software with AI will show if there’s a sudden surge in negative sentiment about a product, the PR team can be alerted immediately and take the necessary action. AI can also pre-emptively identify and alert on topics which it predicts will have an increased media attention in the near future. This allows media relations professionals to stay alert and prepare for outcomes such as the need for crisis management. An AI system might also identify patterns that often precede a PR crisis in a particular industry which allows communications teams to take preventative measures.
Newsjacking
As well as preventative measures, AI can spot an emerging trend that the brand could capitalise on for positive proactive PR. You may spot a trending hashtag for example, that could stay around for a period of a few days or more and reacting to it and piggy backing onto it can show you’re a brand quick to act and be included in the coverage.
Negative effect of using AI for content
We will never support using AI to write content because it’s not authentic but this could go as far as having a negative impact on your brand if you house AI-generated blogs or thought leadership on the website. Your business may be penalised in its Google ranking for having AI content, assume plagiarism and then not knowing where the content originated from, so it’s important to think carefully about using AI for efficiency as it could have a wide impact on your brand.
Closing thoughts
The advancements in AI are by no means replacing humans within media relations but it is expanding our capabilities, allowing us to put the time where it is most beneficial, utilising AI tools for some more routine or data-intensive tasks to ensure the most value for client partners.