What is Tech PR?

lauryn preston

At Kiopi, we work with entrepreneurs, business professionals, and digital marketing agencies throughout the United States. We help business owners from all walks of life. As social media management experts, we’ve recently realized that many marketers and business owners don’t understand the premise behind tech PR. If you’re running a business and you aren’t quite sure about technology public relations, or if you just need a refresher, keep reading. Our social media marketing gurus will attempt to tackle the confusing topic of tech PR.

Technology Public Relations Definition

Tech PR is also known formally as technology public relations. To make things a little easier, let’s divide this into two separate pieces: technology and public relations. We’ll start with the public relations portion.

What Does the PR in Tech PR Mean?

PR is short for public relations. This is the process of informing your stakeholders about your business, brand, or organization. Using technology PR, you can also encourage your stakeholders to form a positive outlook concerning your brand. The term “stakeholders” is a broad term. Stakeholders can refer to prospective customers, the general public, employees, investors, partners, or anyone else who could potentially be affected by your business’s values and decisions. The goal of technical public relations is to maintain a positive outlook within whichever forms of media are favored by your customer base. For many businesses, this includes social media, magazines, newspapers, or broadcast media.

So, essentially, PR strategies are all about using any media coverage possible to create a positive reputation for yourself and your business.

Public Relations vs. Digital Marketing Strategies

And this is where public relations differs from marketing strategies and other forms of communications efforts. With marketing, you are responsible for highlighting the positive aspects of your business. But, for a PR team, the media outlets do this on your behalf.

Anybody can use technical public relations to boost their brand’s reputation: businesses, institutions, organizations, government entities, public figures, non-profits, and more. You don’t necessarily need to hire a specialist tech pr agency.

For smaller businesses, you don’t necessarily need to work with top tech PR agencies or a social media strategist to boost brand reputation management.

You just need a little discipline and a social media marketing and management program, like Kiopi!

So, now that we have the public relations portion down, let’s move on to the “tech” portion.

What is Tech PR in Simple Terms?

Tech PR is the process of using various media outlets to create and promote a positive reputation for technology companies and digital business entities.

Tech companies can use tech PR to overcome several industry challenges. A tech business could use technical public relations strategies to communicate innovation to stakeholders, secure investments, win awards, or attract the best talent.

There are several various types of tech PR. Here are a few types, as well as how you may use them.

Key Components Of Effective Tech PR

Crafting A Compelling Tech Narrative

Crafting a compelling tech narrative is an art that tech PR agencies have mastered to bridge the gap between innovation and its target markets.

At the heart of every technological advancement, there’s a story waiting to be told, one that appeals to both the tech-savvy and the layperson. A public relations company plays a pivotal role in shaping this narrative, ensuring it is genuine and engaging.

Companies like Pan Communications, for instance, specialize in sculpting these tales, emphasizing not just the features of a tech product but the transformative impact it brings to everyday life.

The Role Of Social Media Management In Tech PR

The role of social management in tech PR is undeniable in the digital age. As technologies evolve, the narratives around them need agile platforms for dissemination, and social platforms stand as a forefront contender.

A tech PR agency leverages these platforms to curate, communicate, and amplify the stories of technological innovations to a vast, interconnected audience. Tech PR agencies also dive deep into big data to extract actionable insights to understand audience sentiments, preferences, and behaviors.

This data-driven approach allows for tailored tech PR strategies, ensuring that tech narratives not only reach their intended audience but also resonate powerfully with them.

The Importance Of Media Relations In Tech

The importance of media relations in tech cannot be overstated. As technological innovations continually reshape industries, having a solid relationship with the media ensures that a tech PR agency can effectively share breakthroughs, insights, and narratives with a broader audience.

Tech PR agencies have the intricate task of liaising with journalists, bloggers, and influencers, ensuring the information disseminated is accurate and compelling.

Furthermore, with the rise of private equity investment in tech startups and established firms, media relations play a crucial role in showcasing the value, potential, and successes of these companies to investors, stakeholders, and the general public.

Strategies For Effective Tech PR Campaigns

Strategies for tech PR campaigns have evolved significantly with the digital transformation of effective communication channels.

A tech PR agency today must blend traditional approaches with new-age digital tactics to create compelling campaign elements that resonate with diverse target audiences. One fundamental strategy involves understanding and segmenting target demographics to tailor messages that appeal directly to them.

Tech PR agencies also emphasize thought leadership, positioning clients as experts in their respective fields.

Engaging content, whether in the form of press releases, articles, or interactive webinars, combined with proactive outreach to journalists and influencers, forms the backbone of a successful campaign. Moreover, monitoring and adapting to real-time feedback ensures that a PR campaign remains dynamic and relevant in a rapidly changing tech landscape.

Utilizing Social Media Influencers And Bloggers

You can’t understate the importance of social media in business.

Utilizing social media influencers and bloggers has become an indispensable strategy in the field of tech PR. These individuals can sway large audiences, given their credibility and established rapport with followers.

Collaborating with them allows companies to tap into existing communities via the influencer’s followers, amplifying their reach and resonating on a more personal level. A well-placed product review, tutorial, or mention by a trusted influencer can result in a significant uptick in brand recognition and consumer trust.

Moreover, bloggers provide in-depth analyses, offering a platform for tech firms and PR teams to dive deeper into their products or services’ intricacies, benefits, and differentiators. This synergy of influencers and bloggers creates a robust PR ecosystem that’s authentic, engaging, and impactful.

Hosting Events And Webinars

Hosting events and webinars is a pivotal strategy within the framework of Tech PR. These platforms offer tech companies a direct channel to engage with their audience, be it potential clients, industry peers, or the curious general public.

Events, whether virtual or physical, provide an immersive experience, allowing attendees to interact with products, ask questions, and establish personal connections with the brand.

On the other hand, webinars delve deeper into specific topics, positioning the hosting company as a thought leader in its niche. They offer value through knowledge-sharing, tutorials, or discussions on the latest tech trends and innovations.

Using events and webinars to boost your brand strategy, when executed effectively, can greatly amplify brand visibility, foster trust, and drive meaningful engagement.

Capitalizing On Breaking News

Capitalizing on breaking tech news is a dynamic approach that PR teams frequently employ to position their brand at the forefront of industry conversations.

In an era dominated by big data, mobile apps, and artificial intelligence, staying attuned to the pulse of these rapidly evolving domains can offer companies a competitive edge. A well-timed comment, insight, perspective, or social update on a trending topic can establish a technical public relations company as an authoritative voice in the tech sector.

By leveraging fresh news angles and integrating them with their clients’ narratives, PR teams can craft compelling stories that capture attention, drive engagement, and solidify a brand’s position in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

Types of Tech PR

Types of tech PR vary in format and approach, each tailored to achieve specific objectives within the vast tech landscape. The diversity in PR styles ensures that tech companies can communicate their stories and values in ways that resonate with diverse audiences.

From product launches to company milestones and from crisis management to thought leadership campaigns, different PR tactics play distinct roles. But make no qualms, technology public relations requires a technical skillset. In fact, some use the term technical public relations interchangeably with tech PR.

Utilizing a mix of these types can help tech companies navigate the complexities of the tech world, maintain a consistent brand image, and foster trust and credibility. By harnessing the power of various PR formats, tech firms can effectively engage, educate, and inspire their target demographic, catalyzing growth and innovation.

News and Press Releases

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a marketing professional looking to try tech PR for your business or client, a simple news or press release is a good way to get started! Suppose you have a newsworthy story related to the business. In that case, there’s really nothing stopping you from sending a press statement to a target publication to help get the message out to potential customers.

But, there is one huge caveat to this PR move: you have to share real news that affects your target market.

So, if you or your client has invented a new piece of technology that will genuinely affect your target audiences and thought leaders, then a press release or news agency would be interested in publishing your story. But, if you’ve simply added another human resources staff member, it’s unlikely that your target audience will care.

You just need to be mindful of other people’s professional lives and time.

If you’re working for or with a tech company and truly believe you have a valid, relevant news story, you’ll want to write a professional, engaging press release to start moving the ball forward. The press release should be informative, interesting, and concise. Don’t wait to put the good information towards the middle or the bottom, either. Put all of your most important facts in the introduction.

Influencer Marketing

Social media influencers can be an incredibly valuable marketing asset for tech startups and tech companies, in general.

What is a Tech PR Influencer?

While some claim to be “influencers,” for influencer marketing, an influencer is a person who:

tech brands engage with to help them promote their technology products, services, or messages
has at least 10,000 followers
is an industry expert
shares information about tech companies or tech products they love
understands how to promote content on social media channels

Social media influencers aren’t “celebrities” in the standard sense of the word, nor are they responsible for providing “breaking news” to their followers. However, both bloggers and social media influencers can wield a ton of social selling power amongst their followers.

Using online content creators to distribute information on your company’s behalf is a fairly new technical public relations strategy. It involves partnering with bloggers, vloggers, or social media personalities to promote content to the influencer’s followers. So, you must ensure that the influencer you partner with has the same target audience as your tech company.

For example, a tech PR influencer campaign could work with a blogger who reviews digital products or tech innovations.

Crisis Management Tech PR

Crisis management and crisis communications is a specialized category of tech PR. This PR strategy is typically carried out by experienced tech PR agencies or PR professionals.

Crisis management for technology companies is a specific type of reputation management that is carried out in an attempt to minimize the damage or some negative event, which hints at the name “crisis”.

A “crisis” could consist of anything that could potentially have a serious impact on the business. This could include supply problems, legal issues, redundancies, company mistakes, product flaws, management misconduct, or anything else that could be perceived as a scandal.

PR teams that specialize in crisis management know that this form of traditional PR isn’t reactive. To maintain your company’s online reputation, your PR team needs to plan a strategy for “if something goes wrong” before it does.

In general, only large technology companies must invest in crisis management PR firms.

Depending on the size and nature of your tech company, crisis management may be an essential part of your overall tech PR strategy.

Thought Leadership

For most technology firms, thought leadership PR strategies will be the most successful.

Thought leaders are typically known as the influencers in the tech world. Those who advance technical science through thought leadership are considered trusted experts in their field. They’re widely respected and have a huge network of connections in the digital industry.

Thought leadership, in terms of tech PR strategies, would involve writing a featured article, typically that would solve a large or universal, real-world problem. You can choose to write the content yourself, or you can have a specialist tech PR agency write it on your behalf.

You don’t have to be a billionaire to be a great thought leader. You simply need to have a great idea that solves a real problem and have effective communication skills.

Internal Communications

Internal communications is one tech PR strategy that digital marketing executives often overlook. Unlike most PR strategies, this PR campaign focuses on the internal brand strategy instead of outside PR or marketing.

If executed properly, internal communications can be one of the most valuable corporate communications efforts that your business can make. Your employees are the ones promoting, creating, and delivering the tech product or service your business is offering. So, if anyone needs to have a positive outlook on your tech firm, it’s your employees.

While, at a glance, this looks like more of a human resources problem, all channels of corporate communications could potentially be affected by this.

Social media can help position your tech company as a great workplace. An interesting newsletter can help to keep your staff members in the loop with respect to your latest advancements.

Integrated Communications for Tech Companies

This isn’t a specific type of PR campaign. Instead, it’s a way to incorporate PR strategies.

Integrated marketing communications isn’t a difficult concept. Essentially, it simply ensures that all messages across all forms of communication are seamlessly linked together. So, all of your business’s promotional tools should work together for the best results.

This would include paid advertising efforts, content marketing efforts, thought leadership, internal communications, search engine optimization, social media optimization efforts, press releases, influencer collaborations, etc.

Integrated communications involves taking every part of your tech PR strategy and making it a part of a holistic overall strategy to grow your tech firm’s brand. It should also incorporate an SEO-optimized website, a captivating social media presence, and a well-thought-out email marketing campaign.

If your tech firm currently doesn’t have a great social media presence, this is where Kiopi can help!

Kiopi Makes Social Media Management Easy for Tech Companies

Social platforms have become a great tool for sharing valuable insights and growing tech firms. Having a strategy that gets tech firms social media attention is one of the best ways to reach your target demographic and engage with prospective customers.

Social media marketing provides opportunities for honest communication between your technology business and your customers. This makes the experience for your potential customers and customers more rewarding. It allows you to have a professional personality that reflects your brand strategy.

At Kiopi, we provide a range of business social media tools for our technology clients looking to outsource social media efforts at least in part to a platform, including the following:

Social Media Content Scheduling

Kiopi is a cutting-edge social media management platform that allows tech firms to plan, schedule, collaborate, and promote content on various social media platforms. Our social media platform posting service and management tool was created with technology at the forefront! Using Kiopi, you can schedule media pitches and content on all major social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business.

With a single click of a button, the program distributes technology information across any social media channels you select.

Social Media Content Generation.

If you’re searching for an AI program that can generate captions, Kiopi is a solid social media post generator, considered one of the best AI tools for social media marketing! It distinguishes itself with creative captions that are better than other market options, intricately weaving content, hashtags, and popular phrases to complement any image.

Social Media Calendar

Created by a team of digital marketing and PR experts, Kiopi’s social calendar is intended to grow your technology firm’s earned media.

The need for consistent posting on behalf of your business paired with positive consumer or follower engagement can quickly become overwhelming when you aren’t working with a PR agency. This often results in the account or social managers feeling overwhelmed.

With Kiopi’s content calendar, you can schedule and organize deliverables easily!

Data Analytics

Your marketing or tech PR efforts are only as good as the data you have to back it up. Big data can lead to big results. Content marketing analytics can be extremely beneficial for gaining a better understanding of which efforts are working and which aren’t.

With Kiopi, you have access to all of the big data and social insights that your tech business needs to have a successful PR campaign. Our program provides real-time data to help you make the best decisions for your technology firm. This will help improve your tech PR and digital marketing efforts and save a ton of time, effort, and money.

Social Media is Essential to Grow Your Tech Company

Some of the largest tech companies today harness the power of social media for business. When you balance content marketing, PR objectives, and social media marketing, you’re setting the foundation for your tech company’s success!

Kiopi offers a free 14-day trial period, so your technology firm has nothing to lose and everything to gain. You don’t have to hire tech PR specialists to reap the benefits of a successful social media campaign.

Ready to try KIOPI? Start your free trial today.