Need for PR in Post Covid Times

By Sayani Banerjee 

Kolkata: Paromita Ghosh — one of the most known faces in the city’s Public Relation circle and the owner-director of leading PR agency of eastern India, Candid Communication, spoke on ‘PR industry’s current scenario and its challenges ahead’ as the third speaker of the day five at the MediaNext 2020 digital conclave. 

#MediaNext 2020 is being organized by the Kolkata-based Adamas University in association with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Lok Samvad Sansthan, exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal. The mega conclave is being organized over a period of 10 days from June 1, 2020 to June 10, 2020. Each day of the conclave focuses on one specialized domain of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on that specific domain.

Talking on the ‘Need of PR in post-Covid era’, Paromita highlighted that PR is also included among the ailing industries amid the global pandemic. “Every industry is facing problems and PR is not an exception. The gap between the PR agencies and the customer has grown due to lockdown and different necessary protocols. But the agencies came back with new ideas as seminars have been converted into webinars and meetings are done via online meeting apps and many more. The only thing we need to be ready for is different and creative ideas,” feels Paromita.

She said that multi-tasking will be the key to growth in the post-Covid time as we should be ready with different ideas and different goals to be achieved in different ways. “Utilize your social media and blog presence more than ever. Locked up at home, people are unsurprisingly glued to their computers and smart phones more than ever. Not only that, but they’re feeling alone, uncertain, and scared. This is why it’s so important to engage continuously with your customers via social media and other online channels, while also making sure that you cater to their needs rather than your own.” 

 As a smart PR person, Paromita thinks, one should look at the news which is coming up in the pipeline and see how we can adapt our announcements to be more in tune with the issues and needs created by the corona virus outbreak. “A global pandemic obviously isn’t the best time for conventional PR and marketing, or for product launches. So, without usual press releases or announcements, one of the best and most effective ways is to stay in the public eye by focusing on thought leadership,” the PR expert suggested.

Now that the corona virus has changed the world, it’s vital that you change your style of messaging, advises Paromita. “While communicating externally, think carefully about the words and language you are using, regardless of whether you’re writing on LinkedIn, in a newsletter, on Twitter, in a press release, or on a blog.”  

Ultimately, it’s the post-COVID future one should keep in mind when updating his/her PR and marketing plans, feels Paromita. “Sooner or later, the corona virus pandemic will end, therefore we need to think how the extra time can be best spent,” she opined. 

For the PR aspirants, Ghosh advised, “Know Your Audience, Choose the Right Platform, Find Your Creative Angle, Write an Exceptional Press Release Distribute Wisely, Build Relationships with Journalists, When reaching out to media personnel, make your email short and sweet, leave the details for the press release.” 

According to her, nothing is more important than following up with your outreach. “Whether you reached out to five outlets or five hundred, you MUST (and I repeat, MUST) follow up with each and everyone, and most likely, more than once. Plain and simple,” she signed off.

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