"Public relations, or PR in short, is informing stakeholders about an organisation, while at the same time forming positive opinions about the brand by performing strategic communications."

"public relations for startups is about using different media channels to form a positive image for your brand."

"advertising is you saying that your product is great, PR is getting someone else to say it for you."

"PR is in the storytelling business."

"A good PR practitioner will analyse the organisation, find positive messages and translate those messages into positive stories."

"It essentially is getting yourself on the media landscape to create a positive image for your brand and make you a thought leader in your industry."

"While often overlooked, thought leadership is considered a core component in marketing."

"Thought leadership as the act of promoting a novel, or unique viewpoint that changes the public's perception."

"Thought leadership is the strategy of branding yourself as an organization or individual with a unique value derived from your expertise and industry insight."

"In fact, AirPR discovered that PR generates conversion rates of 10 to 50 times that of advertising."

"a great risk in startups is not failure to develop a new product, but failure to find and develop your audience and customers."

"it must address the needs and challenges of being a new company, starting with a short-term and long-term focus on generating brand awareness as well as becoming thought leaders."

"Startups can do this by being clear about what they want their audience to know about them, how it will differentiate itself from existing companies and how they will add more value than its competitors."

"A public relations specialist with the relevant media training can help startups find relevant media outlets to pitch their vision and business goals to, and find the most appropriate audience."

"The world of PR for tech startups has a trial and error learning curve, therefore it is important your startups should focus on finding what works for you, and this should happen sooner rather than later in the development of the startup."

"Identifying your goals and values"

"Firstly you should figure out your value proposition which is the core of your brand."

"The value proposition should be easily understandable so aim to explain it with one sentence."

"My Company is developing to help with ."

"Identifying the goals of public relations for startups and defining your key messages is important to set you on the right track."

"Before you go any further with your business you also need to develop the core values and mission statement of your brand."

"What change are you trying to be about? What is your mission? What principles are you guided by?"

"Create engaging content"

"It provides a unified, consistent voice across multiple digital platforms and improves your credibility."

"A successful content strategy should contemplate seasonal as well as ever-green opportunities for content creation."

"Analyze how your target audience interacts and consumes your content through digital marketing tools such as Hotjar, that will give you an indication of what people like the most about your content"

"Leverage your network to reach lookalike audiences. Feature important personalities in your content to reach their followers and build a bigger audience together"

"Leverage your social outlets"

"Produce research in industry"

"One of the most successful and effective ways that we have garnered coverage from the press is through the sharing of fresh data by conducting research. Journalists are looking for angles, but they are also looking for data and fresh insights."

"you can’t simply advertise what you do and who you are, you need a novel way to express your value."

"This is where industry research comes in. Rather than sharing the value of your actual service, your intent is instead to share interesting and relevant information about the industry you are in."

"Often, a good starting point is to find data on trends, pain points, or any other news affecting your industry. This research can then be turned into a press pitch, or even an industry report."

"Produce research in users"

"The research ‘in users’ is very similar to that of ‘in the industry’ as it also allows you to share it with a broad audience, and it will establish you as a thought leader of a certain topic in your niche."

"Create guest blogs"

"In PR this is critical because you are adding value to topics in your industry by sharing these newsworthy articles with publications."

"Establish opinion pieces and newsjacking"

"Opinion pieces are sent to opinion editors. They are short, 300-600 words, and are meant to convey your opinions on topical issues affecting your industry."

"Newsjacking is the process of adding your opinions or thoughts to a breaking news story. You are essentially piggybacking news that is trending to get yourself noticed."

"Writing a press release"

"Your press release will be shared with journalists and news publications, and as such needs to be written in a journalistic style."

"The best way to think about this is using the Inverted Pyramid, a metaphor used by journalists to structure and prioritise information."

"You should write your press release in the third person, and edge along the fine line between self-promotion and plain facts."

"You always start your press release with the headline."

"2. Use data to generate interest"

"By using data you can be strategic with your content."

"In this section, you should aim to anticipate and answer the questions a journalist might have about the announcement you are making for your company’s products, services or events."

"For this section, it is salient to use quotes. It humanizes the story and reiterates the newsworthy feature of your story."

"Then, you should send your press release with a brief description of the company and the issue and reasons for the press release. It is sometimes referred to as a “call to action” (CTA)."

"Putting the incentive on the journalist to find out more, or take a more active role"

"In this section, you should add all of the contact information, of yourself, and others whom the journalist might need to communicate with to develop the story into their publication."

"it is imperative that your press release stands out to them and that you explain why they would find it of interest."

"5. Focus on the bigger picture"

"No matter what your business is doing or creating, the story you are pitching must have meaning for your audiences."

"6. Give your pitch context"

"7. Make your pitch as original as you can"

"Make sure your pitch has an original take on whatever the subject means is."

"8. Understand your audience"

"The first audience is the journalist — this might seem like an obvious answer but can often be overlooked."

"The second audience is those who will be reading the article when it’s written and published"

"9. Read the room"

"At the end of the day, writing a pitch is explaining why your story should be shared."

"You can follow this structure when creating a pitch: Scenario >Problem >Solution > Resources"

"Put some context into your story and get the journalist on the same page. Why are you writing the pitch?"

"In the past few years, companies have been looking for alternatives to the dreadful annual performance reviews."

"Here you should point out what’s wrong with the scenario that was mentioned above."

"Here is where you can talk about what you or your brand are doing to tackle the problem mentioned above."

"This part gets ignored often by PR professionals, but in order to increase the chances of getting your story picked by a journalist you should seriously consider offering resources that could participate in the story, such as the CEO of the solution you’re pitching or a researcher in the field of the story."

"No more than 3 paragraphs in the body of the email with your sources quoted."

"Identify your organization’s goals"

"Conduct market research"

"Look up their previous achievements"

"The best kind of indicator is a PR agency’s success stories. If not already easily accessible, ask the agency for their case studies. A case study is a good way for PR agencies to demonstrate the tangible results that they can offer."

"How do you measure the results?"

"How do you integrate media relations?"

"What is unique about your services?"

"What contacts do you have within our industry?"

"Get to know those directly handling your account"