The Level 5 PR Strategy

What are level 5 PR activ­it­ies — and why are they important?

In this art­icle, I’ll briefly explain how search engines and social media algorithms are sort­ing away mediocre and strong PR activities.

I’ve been advising cli­ents on digit­al strategies for two dec­ades. The short ver­sion: What used to work yes­ter­day prob­ably won’t work today.

Today, you might have to go big — or go home.

Here we go:

“Level 5”

Think of the arbit­rary qual­ity of PR activ­it­ies in five levels—from ter­rible to epic.

No one wants ter­rible or weak PR activ­it­ies, but in some scen­ari­os, pro­du­cing a steady stream of aver­age and good PR activ­it­ies over time makes sense. They’re good enough, timely—and typ­ic­ally cost-effi­cient.

However, as the com­pet­i­tion for atten­tion becomes more intense, pub­lics cares less and less about mediocrity. 

To make mat­ters worse, search engines and social media algorithms are get­ting bet­ter by the day at sort­ing away any­thing that isn’t epic (i.e. the silent switch).

Depending on the industry, the bar for what will cut through the noise of a digit­al-first land­scape has become insanely high. Oftentimes, good isn’t good enough anymore.

What does this mean for pub­lic relations?

The appar­ent solu­tion is epic PR activ­it­ies (“level 5”). It means only going for enorm­ous scales or unfathom­able cre­at­ive PR ideas every time. Go big — or go home.

A level 5 PR strategy guar­an­tees expos­ure and word-of-mouth, but the invest­ment requires con­sid­er­able time, tal­ent, and money. This is not a PR strategy for the faint-hearted.

Now, if budgets and cre­at­ives aren’t in end­less sup­ply, the redeem­ing resource here is time.

Therefore, the level 5 PR strategy often involves lessen­ing the num­ber of PR activ­it­ies and focus­ing all PR resources on one big splash.

Learn more: The Level 5 PR Strategy

Examples of Level 5 PR Activities 

Here are examples of epic PR activ­it­ies (“level 5”) where organ­isa­tions went all in on one spec­tac­u­lar cam­paign to dom­in­ate pub­lic attention:

Each PR activ­ity exem­pli­fies a level 5 PR strategy — high-risk, high-reward, and high-cost.

Learn more: The Level 5 PR Strategy

The Silent Switch

All social media algorithms are built dif­fer­ently and are con­stantly being developed. At the same time, social media users’ beha­viours are evolving.

Still, there was a way that social media algorithms used to behave—and there is a way that social media algorithms behave now.

This has been a fun­da­ment­al but silent switch.

How Social Media Algorithms Used To Behave

For more than a dec­ade, social media algorithms would deliv­er organ­ic reach accord­ing to a dis­tri­bu­tion that looked some­thing like this:

This dis­tri­bu­tion of organ­ic reach enabled organ­isa­tions to use social media des­pite not being “media companies.”

How Social Media Algorithms Behave Today

Today, after the silent shift, social media algorithms deliv­er organ­ic reach more like this:

The increased com­pet­i­tion and soph­ist­ic­a­tion among con­tent cre­at­ors par­tially explain this new type of dis­tri­bu­tion. However, going vir­al is still just as pos­sible for anyone.

How does this work?

The Single Content Algorithm

How can a social net­work pre­dict what users will like? 

Content from a trus­ted cre­at­or trus­ted by a large com­munity of fol­low­ers used to be the lead­ing indic­at­or of future per­form­ance. But today, social net­works have found a bet­ter way to pre­dict con­tent success.

The single con­tent algorithm = when social net­works demote con­tent cre­at­or author­ity to pro­mote single con­tent per­form­ance to max­im­ise user engage­ment for ad revenue.

The single con­tent algorithm presents newly pub­lished con­tent to a lim­ited audi­ence sample size:

If the newly pub­lished con­tent tests suc­cess­fully, the social media algorithm pushes that con­tent to a slightly lar­ger stat­ist­ic­al sub­set. And so on.

This iter­at­ive pro­cess means that single pieces of con­tent worthy of going vir­al will go vir­al, a) even if it takes a longer time, and b) regard­less of the con­tent cre­at­or’s num­ber of followers.

Learn more: The Silent Switch

Go For Level 5 — or Go Home

Today, we need strategies based on what’s rap­idly becom­ing the most valu­able com­mod­ity in the world — atten­tion.

A crit­ic­al point is that good enough PR activ­it­ies will steal resources from poten­tially epic ones — whatever that may entail in your niche. 

To para­phrase busi­ness author Jim Collins, “good can be the enemy of great.”

In the age of algorithms, the win­ners take all — or at least most of it. Traffic. Conversions. Engagement. Share of voice. Attention. 

If this means pro­du­cing less good con­tent to make the occa­sion­al great con­tent — so be it.

THANKS FOR READING.
Need PR help? Hire me here.

What should you study next?

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Spin’s PR School: Free Strategy PR Course

Unlock the power of stra­tegic pub­lic rela­tions with this free Strategy PR Course. Elevate your skills and boost your career today.

Public Relations Strategy 101

• The Bad PR Strategy
• The Magical PR Question
• The 1‑Page PR Strategy
• How to Create a PR Strategy That Actually Works

Public Relations Strategies

• The Inbound Shift PR Strategy
• The Stupid Majority PR Strategy
• The Extra Mile PR Strategy
• The Thought Leadership PR Strategy
• The Hidden Arena PR Strategy
• The Superhero Solution PR Strategy
• The Easy Street PR Strategy
• The Surround Message PR Strategy
• The Rebel Yell PR Strategy
• The Laser Focus PR Strategy
• The Blue Ocean PR Strategy (to be published)
• The Deep Content PR Strategy
• The Evergreen Content PR Strategy
• The Content Themes PR Strategy
• The Honeymoon Outreach PR Strategy
• The Level 5 PR Strategy

Grey-Hat PR Strategies

• The Triangulation PR Strategy (to be published)
• The Media Attack PR Strategy (to be published)
• The Muzzle Velocity PR Strategy

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR.