4 steps to give your startup’s PR a tune-up

After two years of concentrated volatility in the workplace, whose effects continue to reverberate, the foundations of startup culture were showing signs of shifting even in early 2022. Since then, success in the land of small, passionate teams has increasingly become anyone’s game. Companies that predated the pandemic and went through the wringer are trying to redefine their place in their respective industries; companies born in the aftermath are struggling to agree on what place they even want to carve out.

But no matter where they fall on the timeline, startups in all industries can look at a new year as an opportunity to refresh their approach to PR. The threat of an economic downturn presents an even more pressing moment to reflect on the messages, connections, and processes that, combined, form the story you tell the world. Here are four ways for startups to sweep out the old and usher in the new.

Consider your key messaging

At its core, PR is about storytelling, so before you do just about anything else, go back to the basics of the story you’re telling. Don’t shy away from existential questions. Has your product or service evolved beyond – or gone in an entirely new direction from – the language you’re using to describe it? Is your word choice outdated? Can a client or customer actually deduce what you do from the flashy text on your website, or would they hem and haw when asked to summarize it?

Key messages should be concise, evocative, and to the point. They need to articulate what your company does, how it has distinguished itself from competitors, and the mission it’s working toward. The good old-fashioned elevator pitch is a trusty approach, and it may work even better when you already have pre-existing messages. Think about how you would revise them. What do you find yourself eager to tell clients and customers when you meet them? Let those inform your key messaging – if you’re excited by the vision of your company, that will translate.

Refresh your social circles

Once you’ve cemented your descriptions of what happens internally, turn your focus outward. Take stock of your personal social media as well as your company’s accounts; assess with whom you interact, and how.

Who are the publications and reporters in your contact book? Compartmentalize them. Long-standing relationships are great to nurture; reach out to those people if you haven’t in a while, wish them a happy new year, and let them know of something exciting that’s on the horizon for your company (just be judicious with the details).

Follow new journalists, too, and do your research on their verticals and their bodies of work before sliding into their DMs. Let your instincts guide you. Which publications are catching your eye lately, and whose writing have you gravitated toward? Mention those articles in the first message you send them. Showing them that you’ve devoted thought to them will make them more likely to devote thought to you.

Take a vibe check Use the first bit of the new year as a period of conscientious reading and absorbing the state of your industry and the world at large. This temperature-taking has at least three tiers: what’s new in your company’s sector (AI and ML? financial services? healthcare?), what’s changing in the world of startups (a culture all its own), and what’s at the forefront of the wider zeitgeist (like the price of eggs these days). Our communal attention span is short, and priorities shift in the blink of an eye.

With every business decision you make, think about how you want your company to respond to, and fit into, this mutable landscape – and how that decision will help get you there. It isn’t enough just to speak the language of your daily work: you belong to a wider social and economic structure, and the better your understanding of it, the better your chances of succeeding in it.

Get the gang together

Whether your team works in person, remotely, or hybrid, you can get back in touch with the core visions and goals of your company by strengthening ties with the people who make up the company. Have regular group conversations about the face you want to present to your clients and customers. Play storytelling games. Play games that have nothing to do with work, too, and that allow you to learn something about each other – having a well of interests and passions to tap into will serve you well in pitches to reporters and meetings with clients. Go out for drinks. The stronger your bond, the more united your front.

In the end, PR is exactly what it says it is: there’s nothing more important than the public and a company’s relationship to it. Examining how you tell your company’s story internally and externally will give it the fresh face it needs to make a splash in the year ahead.