How Do PR Professionals Prioritize Tasks in a Changing Landscape?

How Do PR Professionals Prioritize Tasks in a Changing Landscape?

In the fast-paced world of social media, staying on top of tasks requires insight and strategy. We've gathered five experts to share their methods, from staying informed and strategically time-blocking to being strategic, yet flexible with content. Dive into the wisdom of industry leaders and learn how to effectively prioritize and manage your workload.

• Stay Informed and Strategically Time-Block
• Engage Personally and Prioritize Community
• Organize Tasks and Delegate When Needed
• Maintain Consistency with Targeted Experiments
• Be Strategic, Yet Flexible with Content

Stay Informed and Strategically Time-Block

Social media never sleeps, and neither do I. To stay on top of it, I'm constantly soaking up insights from top blogs like Hootsuite and Later. I also stalk the press pages of the big players—Instagram, Meta, TikTok—to catch the latest features or trends right as they drop.

To manage my daily tasks, I rely on ClickUp as my project management tool of choice, complemented by strict time-blocking. My mantra? Unless it's on my calendar, consider it nonexistent. I run a tight ship with our content, planning everything way in advance. But you know what? I always keep some space open—just in case. You never know when a trend or topic is going to hit out of nowhere, and when it does, it's often a great opportunity to position your brand as an expert in the industry.

A good example of needing to pivot quickly was when a TikTok post for a medspa client unexpectedly went viral after she shared her opinion on the Sephora Kids topic (kids going to Sephora to play with skincare, creating skincare 'smoothies,' buying products that have active ingredients not meant for younger skins, and such). We received over 500 comments, which gave us a great opportunity to continue the conversation. We immediately shifted our content strategy to engage with the community, putting our planned posts on hold to answer questions and build trust with the new audience.

Deciding where to focus resources comes down to understanding each platform's requirements for performance and aligning them with time-sensitive tasks. Early in the day, I tackle the most urgent items, saving research and planning for later.

As for team collaboration and delegation, they are indispensable. Recognizing that I can't excel at everything, I lean on specialized talents to elevate work and achieve better results. This collaborative effort is key to navigating the complexities of social media management.

Finally, success metrics are tailored to our business goals, such as lead generation or brand awareness. We constantly evaluate our strategy's effectiveness in meeting these objectives, ready to adjust our focus based on performance data. It's a dynamic process, but by aligning efforts with clear goals and remaining adaptable, I'm able to navigate the ever-changing social media landscape effectively.

Engage Personally and Prioritize Community

Managing any social media landscape requires regular personal engagement with online trends and content, and understanding how users are building them organically. Prioritizing tasks is on a case-by-case basis, but generally involves prioritizing social media and MailChimp engagement for events with deadlines, while also having a lot of content that is not necessarily 'pushing' something on the user. For example, one thing we like to do with the LabX account is to actively engage with other users by commenting, liking, and sharing their posts, rather than just posting on our account without engaging with our community. Hope this helps!

Organize Tasks and Delegate When Needed

It is tough to prioritize tasks when everything is important. It is tough to manage multiple projects simultaneously, but with the right tools and set goals, one can organize the workload. You have to make a list of urgent and important work, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and neither urgent nor important.

The first one on the list should be done first. Tasks that aren't important but are urgent can be done later, so delegate them.

Once you complete the urgent and important work, leave some room to complete the important tasks that aren't urgent. And for the tasks that aren't urgent or important, complete them when you have time.

You can use tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sendible that can help you manage your tasks, map out your work and schedules, and help you build customizable dashboards according to your branding.

If you have a team, it is better to share the workload. Instead of overlapping tasks, schedule your tasks so that your focus doesn't get diverted from one task to another.

Maintain Consistency with Targeted Experiments

As a running coach and small-business owner, I rely on social media to connect and engage with my customers. My primary objective is to maintain a consistent posting schedule to ensure a stable and engaging online presence. To achieve this, I rely on a meticulously crafted content calendar that dictates our publishing cadence, allowing us to deliver regular content that our audience anticipates and values.

In the fast-paced realm of social media, it's tempting to frequently switch strategies in response to the latest trends. However, I believe in the power of continuity and the strength of a well-established plan. To balance the need for innovation with the necessity of consistency, I employ a methodical approach to change, conducting small-scale experiments to test new ideas and measure their impact.

These experiments are carefully designed to provide insights without disrupting our overall strategy. By introducing new concepts incrementally and analyzing their performance, I can make data-driven decisions about their potential integration into our broader social media efforts. This approach allows us to stay current with evolving trends while preserving the integrity of our core messaging and engagement goals.

Ultimately, my role requires a blend of discipline and adaptability, ensuring that our social media strategy remains both reliable for our audience and flexible enough to adapt to the digital landscape's constant evolution. Through strategic planning, consistent execution, and targeted experimentation, I manage to uphold our brand's reputation as an authoritative and dependable voice in the ever-changing social media ecosystem.

Be Strategic, Yet Flexible with Content

As a Co-Founder of Resilient Stories, my partner and I were thrown into the role of Social Media Manager! We have discovered that juggling tasks in the ever-shifting social media world is all about being strategic yet flexible. Here's what we do:

We stay focused on the big picture. We keep our main goals and audience in focus. This helps us weed out the noise and zoom in on what matters.

Our content calendar is our lifesaver! It's where we plot out our posts and campaigns, but we are always ready to tweak it if something trendy pops up.

We are always on the lookout for the next big thing. A part of my day goes into trend-spotting so we can ride the wave when it aligns with our content.

Diving into the data by conducting regular check-ins on our analytics keeps us sharp. Seeing what hits the mark with our followers helps us decide where to double down.

I use cool tools (Later, TrendTok, Canva) to keep posts rolling out smoothly, but I save room for real-time reactions or last-minute gold. We are always ready to ramp things up when opportunity knocks or dial back when we need to regroup.

It is important that we make sure to carve out time for learning and recharging. Staying fresh and curious is how we keep the ideas flowing.

In short, our strategy is about having a plan but not being glued to it. Staying agile, using the right tools, and maintaining positive energy helps us create a strategic social media plan.