Public Relations practice in Africa has come of age, occupying the core of relationship management between public departments and the general public they cater to. Whether the PR ‘face’ is up to the task is an entirely different issue altogether. Different, pertinent and somewhat worrying, public relations at the heart of Africa’s public sector is still saddled with peculiarities, most of which are neither complimentary nor flattering.

The direct marketing power of LinkedIn is partially driven by its customised databases, the influence 3rd party credibility provides, the extra oomph an organisation can gain by using its employees’ profiles and its excellence as a thought leadership platform.

LinkedIn boasts a range of sophisticated tactical tools to help achieve strategic communication objectives. The tools include market research, LinkedIn groups, direct marketing e-campaigns to your range of contacts, Company pages and leveraging off organisational employee LinkedIn profiles.

Establishing credibility and engaging target audiences are key aspects of what both inbound marketing and public relations are designed to achieve. Inbound marketing is actually an ideal manifestation of aspects of strategic public relations as its content is predicated on having identified what target audiences are interested in and value, then the organisation working hard to satisfy those needs.

In this public relations and marketing case study, the essential challenge addressed involves creating an inbound marketing strategy for an infrastructure company. The strategy integrates the following dimensions: 3rd party credibility, strategic alliances, thought leadership and internet communication.

The hub & spoke methodology of digital communication is incredibly important to public relations and marketing communication because it is, strategically and tactically, a fundamental means of understanding, reaching, engaging with and influencing target audiences, as well as generating and leveraging ‘free’ viral ‘explosions’ of organisational messaging across the internet.

Three of public relations’ best practice pillars are either commonly not applied to their potential or, worse, not applied at all. These pillars, the Holy Trinity of public relations – thought leadership, 3rd party credibility and strategic alliances – should be default characteristics of any public relations strategy. This lack of application, and the minimal amount of discussion on them, prompted me to produce a free white paper on the topics.

With the preponderance of social media in the form of blogs or ‘mini-blogs’ (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, even Pinterest) there is an opportunity to revolutionise traditional media’s approach of taking a negative, divisive and conflict-fixated approach. Of course, it has been observed that conflict is what interests people, but that doesn’t always need to be the case. Not being negatively oriented would provide a marketable POD.

The triple treat of content marketing, inbound marketing and brand journalism should be a default inclusion in any holistic organisational public relations strategy. This is because the internet is where people go to for information and where they are influenced; the relevance of SEO; social media helps drive SEO and viral word-of-mouth; it facilities content generation; increasingly mixed reviews on media credibility.

Here is a black and white tip for you: if you are considering a Sydney PR agency to do your PR work and they don’t do the following, then ditch them from your list: have a blog; employ staff who are active on social media; produce thought leadership content; have employees with professionally filled out LinkedIn profiles; know what they are talking about when you flag the topics of thought leadership, inbound marketing, content marketing, brand journalism, strategic alliances and 3rd party credibility.