A Beginner’s Guide To Public Relations For Tech Startups

Public relations or PR is an important tool for tech companies. Several problems can be solved and many benefits can be availed if a proper PR strategy is applied.

If you are a tech company looking for more information on how you can use PR to your advantage, you are at the right place. Today we shall be looking at useful tips and unique ways to help your business succeed. Let’s get started!

Overview

Tech companies are those that work with programmers, scientists, or engineers. These people use existing knowledge/facts to bring about innovation.

Since one great idea can change the world, tech companies operating under this motto are surely aiming for the stars.

However, since there is massive competition with businesses starting up every other day, a PR strategy is required to attract potential stakeholders while keeping current ones.

Many people might think that PR and tech are two different subjects but the truth is that PR is truly changing the professional approach. Effective strategies can help create brand awareness and bring in leads.

• Startups offer the most vacancies for new employees.
• Startups are crucial in supporting the economy.
• New startups every day mean that gaining the attention of media and potential leads is crucial.

What Is PR?

PR simply means creating or working on portraying a positive image for the public to see.

Public relations mainly work around information that needs to be communicated to stakeholders. How this information is conveyed and how well it can attract clients, investors, partners, consumers, and employees ultimately decides how successful your business will be.

• PR is necessary for media coverage and brand awareness.
• It helps portray a positive image and tell a captivating brand story.
• Brand awareness strengthens credibility and authority.
• PR helps combine all communication channels to create a widespread positive brand image.

PR Vs. Human Relations

• PR is meant to create a favorable image of a brand in the public’s eyes.
• Human relations helps create long-term relationships that are meaningful and based on social interaction.

What Is Tech PR?

A tech company or business provides digital products, services, hardware, or platforms. It is their main source of effective revenue and they rely heavily upon it.

Some companies even purposely label themselves as a tech startup or business for added PR points.

However, technological PR is the method of creating a positive image for a business that solely sells tech services or products.

Tech PR Vs. Regular PR

• Tech companies may offer digital solutions that most people are not very well aware of. Communicating what the business is about and what they sell will attract a wider audience.
• Messages and information should be simplistic and easily understandable for the regular consumer.
• The tech industry is fast-paced and constant competition means you need a PR game that can beat new companies, innovations, and funding campaigns.
• The PR strategy needs to be evolved, should be relevant, and attractive.
• Tech PR allows companies to evolve at high speed to make it difficult for competitors to keep up.

Common Issues Faced By Tech Startups

Not only can PR help drive a company towards success, but it is also beneficial in helping solve many common problems.

Proper communication boosts visibility and helps the brand gain credibility. PR drives more sales while ensuring clients and stakeholders start trusting the brand.

Common troubles faced by tech companies include:

• Difficulty in gathering funds.
• Trouble in recruiting skilled talent.
• Customer base growth.
• Business scaling.

These issues can be resolved by the application of tech PR and the development of channels for proper communication with the audience.

Is PR Beneficial For Smaller Tech Companies?

Similar to the benefits PR can bring for large-scale setups, it can profit small tech companies too.

• Small companies can gain brand credibility faster through quicker news cycling.
• No approval waits.
• PR can be more creative and initiated with a small budget.
• Promotes innovation. 
• Trial and error margin.

An important thing to note is that smaller tech companies should not implement similar strategies to larger ones. Strategic relationships, SEO ranking, and better brand visibility can be achieved through small scale efforts too. Remember that limitations ultimately boost creativity and originality.

Advantages Of Tech PR

To believe that tech PR is truly effective, it is necessary to know the benefits it can bring. Only after learning these, you can move forward towards learning effective PR strategies. Let’s take a look below:

Added Credibility And Client Trust

Awareness is directly proportional to credibility. The more you appear in news and on social media, and the more people are aware of your presence, the more credible you will seem.

Plus, credibility also helps clients and stakeholders develop trust in your brand faster. People automatically assume that a well-known brand is worth investing in and must be present at all popular events and engagements.

Marks A Leader

PR involves posting regular updates on social media and other communication channels. Regular content with proper backlinking allows your company website to gather more leads and organic traffic. Being featured on other websites makes you seem like a leader and helps bring in new conversions.

Creates A Magnificent Brand Image

Tech PR is meant to tell a story to create a positive and attractive brand image. Doing so allows people to understand your motto, what you are selling, and the principles your company lives by. It also helps people realize that your product/service is the solution to their problem and that you are not just in the game to make a few bucks.

Reach Expansion In Target Market 

The main aim of PR is to help a brand broaden its reach in its target market. Accurate strategies can help a company get hold of new stakeholders while making sure the existing ones are not corroded. Through PR, a company gains credibility and slowly becomes the go-to for stakeholders due to the added awareness.

Strategies For Tech PR

Along with getting news plus media coverage for your brand, tech PR is also necessary to boost overall marketing efforts.

So what are some strategies that can be used to enable efficient PR for tech? Let’s take a look:

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is one of the most essential components of marketing. To build a brand reputation and emerge as the expert that others look up to in your field, it is necessary to create a strong presence.

As a representative of a certain niche/industry, there are certain benchmarks you must meet and certain efforts that you must input to do justice to the responsibility on your shoulders.

As an opinion leader, you must have sufficient knowledge of your business as well as the industry you work in to allow a wide audience to be attracted. This helps expand your reach within your marketplace.

Nearly 83% of people believe that thought leadership promotes brand trust so this strategy can prove very helpful in building a brand reputation. 

Not only will other brands look up to you for inspiration and insights, but you will also become the go-to option for potential clients.

SEO

SEO is something you must not ignore especially as a tech company. SEO helps bring in organic traffic to your website which further produces leads.

To increase the quantity and quality of traffic brought to your website, promote brand reach and make your site more visible, target keywords are a must to use.

• SEO helps search engines promote your website in search results more often.
• Allows the site to be indexed.
• The website becomes a part of the search engine algorithm which brings in authentic traffic.
• You can increase reach by posting authentic and informational blogs on your website.

Make sure your website is stable, loads up fast, and is secure to keep visitors safe. Use backlinking to link to other websites and promote yourself as a feature on other blogs.

Also make sure to use sufficient backlinks without overdoing them.

Slowly as your website gains credibility, you may even start getting collab offers from top publishers, media, and news channels. All this means more sales.

Social Media

Social media is rapidly evolving and the sudden growth in the past decade or so makes it obvious that this is a strategy you definitely would not want to look over.

It is a good idea to make use of multiple platforms and promote your content using various channels. This doubles your reach and also lets you tap into the global market.

A constant presence on social media platforms allows customers to stay in touch, provide feedback and let you know of any complaints. This allows the brand to refine its services and build a company that caters to customers better.

• Social media can help a brand understand its target audience and view insights.
• Followers allow a brand to know what content they like to see so posts can be made more timely and engaging.
• Helps the brand understand consumer desires.
• A good presence helps differentiate and distinguish the brand from competitors. 
• Helps the company find answers to common issues in the tech niche.

Market Your Content

If you wish to keep clients hooked, you need to publish content that is high quality consistently.

Technology should be your focal point and you should explain how your product/service is relevant to the niche and how it can help. Make sure your audience understands that the product can be useful to them and is not just a tactic to grab money.

You need to input thorough and proper research to produce content that holds value in the eyes of the reader. Creating awareness allows consumers to see why your company is different from others and why they should invest.

• Make use of target keywords in written content to drive organic traffic.
• Hire a website designer to build a professional-looking website.
• Use SEO to boost site performance. 
• Post blogs, tutorials, videos, and FAQs to keep the website engaging.
• Use ad tools to promote your website and reach a wider audience by paying a small fee.

Growth Hacking And Internal Communications 

This one is quite a new strategy but has earned a lot of applause from around the globe. Growth hacking is often used up by startups which allows the company to gain a lot of followers in a significantly short period.

Even companies with a tight budget implement this hack. A company starts testing several ideas to see which works for them, has little to no red tape, and is very low risk.

Internal communications work on the brand’s reputation within the company. It helps employees realize the company has values and use these as inspiration to drive towards a purpose and produce better results.

These employees slowly become excellent brand ambassadors and are likely to bring in more leads than usual. Working together and being on the same page sets any business up for success.

Final Thoughts

Being aware of the existence of tech PR, strategies that can be used, and the benefits it can bring in can help a company create a successful strategy.

Since almost all companies today are making use of PR techniques to bring themselves to light, you will only linger behind if you fail to follow in their footsteps. Good luck!