How to strategically convert the awareness public to the active public as a PR person

How to strategically convert the awareness public to the active public as a PR person

The duties of a PR professional as I always say are meaningless without the public. The public plays a vital role in ensuring that the office of the public relations personnel is created. Why do you think organizations would spend money to create that space for a PR person? Even organizations that do not have a direct relationship with their public are now recruiting PR professionals as part of their managerial roles. This should tell you that the PR professional is an underrated one. I don’t want to repeat myself but the image of a whole organization rests on the shoulders of a PR person. 

How to strategically convert the awareness public to the active public as a PR person by quikcounsel.com

Most of the time, people with good reputations and respect in the public eye are the chosen ones for this role. As of now, we already know that even with the public of an organization, there are different categories of them based on some public relations scholars’ research and observations. We already know about the active public who are almost like the watchdogs to the organization and there is another known as the awareness public. In this article, we will look into how you as a PR professional can strategically convert an awareness public to an active public.

Awareness public are the individuals who have realized their connection with an organization due to certain circumstances. This realization pushes them to engage with the organization, unlike the active public that knows what transpires in the organization from the beginning to the end. They are regarded as awareness public because the level of engagement channeled to the active public is higher than that of the former. When you create awareness, you only tend to make people aware of whatever is going on but some could take action as a result of the awareness created and some too will not. 

That is the difference you need to know between the active public and the awareness public. We know now that an active public makes the work of a public relations officer very effective and demanding. In other words, there is no lazy PR professional in the presence of an active public. If that is the case, every organization would want its public to be the active one. Suppose you are the PR of an organization and based on your research and advice to the management, you have identified your public to be awareness type, how do you convert them to become an active public?

The first strategy I will recommend is engagement campaigns. You are responsible and in charge of the organization’s relationship with the public. You can request resources to organize an engagement campaign to change your awareness public to an active public. Remember I stated that the active public is more engaged as compared to the awareness public. If that is the case, is it not engagement that needs to be increased for the awareness public for them to be converted to active public? There are many ways to achieve this. You can create social media polls, forums, and contests related to the brand or organization to bring more people on board. The more the engagement, the more people become active public because they are no longer aware only but know whatever is happening in the organization. Also, they would begin to offer their opinions and critiques and that is where the PR needs to step up and listen to the people and use that to advise the organization.

The next strategy is public education. Sometimes, people are just not active because they don’t know much about your brand or organization. All these are responsibilities of a public relations professional. You can create educational content that talks about the brand, values, vision, and mission and other relevant content that will compel people to start looking out for your organization. But whatever educational content you create, make sure they are delivered to that public that is only aware that such organization exist but are not compelled to probe or engage with the organization. This is achievable when you have done enough research to know the type of audience you deal with every day. An example is free webinars, free workshops, and sometimes video content that seeks to inspire the awareness public to be in touch with the organization every time. That is, they become an active public.

Finally, partnerships and collaborations are keys to converting an awareness public to an active public, why? PR professionals can collaborate and partner with influencers, and even other brands to create something unique that will catch the attention of the public that is just aware. In the case of influencers, it becomes more advantageous when the audience of the influencer has some kind of relationship with your organization. Have you heard of some top brands that came together and the results it yielded for them? A telecommunication in Ghana, a West African country, Tigo collaborated and partnered with another telecommunication company Airtel and two audiences came together to form a big family. I see that as a good strategy because at that time, the awareness public is yearning to know what the collaboration and partnership is about and that is how they turn out to become active public.

If you know your public, build a stronger relationship with them because if they feel ignored and unattended to, they would just observe and leave. Don’t settle for an awareness public, active public would give you the experience in your public relations career.

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