How PR can benefit from Big Data

Every day, huge amounts of ‘big data’ are being generated, and many businesses are utilizing it in many departments in order to modernize their procedures and companies. In the digital age, almost everything that you do online creates data that companies can use to help their marketing teams create better content and resources, but one area that often gets ignored is public relations, or PR. PR can benefit massively from accessing big data, and having people within the department who understand how to control and harness it properly. But how exactly should you proceed with PR and big data? It’s a fairly new concept, and while it is growing rapidly it is still in its developmental stage, so to speak. However, these few tips should help you to integrate big data with your business’ PR.

Creating Need For New Skills

Obviously, when you harness big data, you need staff on hand who can understand it and turn it into something usable. “Big data is generating so many new job opportunities, for somewhat ‘niche’ professions, which you really wouldn’t expect!” exclaims Cheryl Toomer, an employee manager at Writemyx and Brit student.“ IT employees are seeing an expected increase in demand, but other employees are also feeling the benefit. Companies are hiring data analysts in droves, and even psychologists! Where do they fit in? They analyse the human side of the data, while analysts concern themselves with the concrete numbers. All of these specialized areas are feeling the boost in need for their skills.”

Accurate Data Analysis And Predictions Based On It

Knowing what consumers want now is difficult, but in a year, or even a month? Near impossible. The world of PR is constantly changing and evolving, and people’s interests flicker and change as quickly as you can blink an eye. But big data can help you to create a more stable business model, by giving you the resources to predict consumer trends accurately, making PR easier – you’ll know what people actually want to see and hear, instead of just guessing. Hiring the right people (experienced data analysts) who know what they’re doing with big data always helps, and will turn that mass of data into something that your company can safely depend on. With big data, new PR ideas are no longer shots into the dark, but carefully calculated opportunities, which will take you and your business far.

Specific Hyper Targeting

Nobody really wants to market to the masses – you always have a more focused, concentrated target in mind, and aim to find that target audience through the style, tone and format of any PR resources and campaigns. However, without knowing what that audience likes, what they use most often on the internet and even who they are, you won’t get far. Big data allows you to specifically focus on niche groups of people, by using what they use to get the best results, and finding out what they appreciate to make sure your PR campaigns get a good reception. If not, you’ll just be wasting time and funds on untargeted messes of PR campaigns.

Innovation With Data Displays

“Sometimes, a big page of data can be really intimidating, even if it does contain really useful information,” Juan Wolfe, a business intelligence analyst at 1Day2write and Next coursework, states, “so you need to make sure that you have a way to break it down to both consumers and investors, and everyone in between. A good PR team will be able to create the necessary resources to make big data accessible to everyone – but you have to make your PR team aware, and make sure that they can deal with the data.”

Customer Acquisition And Retention

With the help of big data, customer service can become better than ever before. Instead of irritated customers trying to explain their problems over and over again to an unprepared staff member, they will have a profile which predicts several possible problems, so that solutions can be prepared. This will make the customer service process efficient, retaining customers who might have otherwise left your business and gone to a rival. You can also create products with your customers in mind, making sure that new customers come flocking in to see the product which solves everything that they need in life – and probably more!

Joel Syder works as a big data analytics specialist, as well as a writer at both Origin Writings and PhD Kingdom. He loves helping people to improve and innovate within their HR departments, and crafting articles about his passions at Academic Brits.