Beyond The Noise: Rewiring PR, Social and Influence for Real Impact
Too many brands treat PR, social and influencers as separate channels, but real impact comes when they’re unified around trust, storytelling and conversation. This ‘manifesto’ lays out a playbook for rewiring thinking to land understanding over awareness as the prize and sought out value over unwanted noise.
Let’s start with the big misconceptions for anyone in charge of building their brand’s relevance. If you think PR is your amplification tool, you’re limiting its value. If you think social media is your brand megaphone, you’re just adding noise into the void. And if you treat influencers as a paid channel, you’re simply deepening their lost soul status as ad space in disguise.
The opportunity this interlinked trinity actually provides is to help you shift beyond the all-too-often settled-for goal of ‘awareness’ into the gold dust territory of ‘understanding.’ With conversation as the strategic link. And trust as the outcome.
Take a step back from your brand for a second and ask yourself the critical question of ‘which other marketing channels can offer me that’? It’s not to say there isn’t a place for brand awareness campaigns. There is. From those other channels. Really importantly. But the tipping point when your brand forces its way to the front of the hundreds of things/products/services your audience is aware of every day, will come more from the PR ‘family’ of channels.
In the triggering of curiosity, the ‘reading’ deeper intrigue and the spark for the rarest of reactions: a genuine like. Not the passive, millisecond click kind. The one with depth behind it. So, we should stop confusing noise and shallow metrics with actual resonance. Stop building silos where there should be joined up strategy. And try to agree on this: PR, social and influencer storytelling should be aligned in purpose because they share the rare ability to deliver credibility, context and emotion in equal measure. Which is the kind of relevance set everyone should be clamouring for.
So why dilute that?
According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 57% of consumers report that when they feel connected to a brand, they will increase their spending with that brand, and 76% will choose them over a competitor. So, if you buy the logic and the evidence, what does the right playbook look like?
Maybe this six-point manifesto…
1. Find your ownable story
Not your strapline. Or your campaign creative. But your core that only you can claim.
This is where PR leads. It digs deeper into your why, adds meaning to your what and wraps emotional context around your how. When done well, it makes what you do, how you operate and what you stand for matter to the people you want to reach. And that’s not a supporting character part. Or an ATL fluffer task. It brings room to expand your appeal, prowl the social stage and build an enviable dialogue.
2. Shift from ‘everyone’ to ‘exactly who’
The most effective PR and social approaches are not always rooted in mass marketing. Instead, they speak directly and meaningfully to the right people. Whether that’s micro-communities, interest-led tribes, or sector-specific decision makers. Tailor, personalise and localise where that is the smart thing to do, because niches don’t dilute impact, they enhance it. And better personalisation means those who start to understand you will share more with others as your credible ambassadors, and give you room to respond and build relationships.
3. Speak human, not ‘campaign’
Social media is not a scheduling tool. It’s a conversation space. And yet most brands use it to broadcast glossy, curated content with the sole aim of “engagement.” But what kind of engagement? A double-tap? A passive scroll? PR thinking helps social speak in a human voice – responsive, real and resonant. The kind that builds community, not just content. And something you can measure in deeper, richer ways.
This storytelling/personality route instead of the alternative shouting model, is where brands get noticed, talked about and acted upon. Back to the PR led ownable heart of a brand.
The similarity between Innocent’s quirky and irreverent social voice, Bold Bean Co’s open and honest warts-and-all journey storytelling, and Tony’s Chocolonely approach on playfulness meets outspokenness on what matters is that all feel uniquely human.
They are brands you would want to talk to as people, and as a result, they build fanbases, not audiences, talking when it is right to do so. Not because it’s been five hours since the last noise was pumped out.
4. Accept Influence is not a media buy
I once created and ran a whole event based on the fact that someone claimed the opposite in a meeting…
And that would be even more the case now.
The influencer fatigue is real. Audiences have grown wise to the #ad conveyor belt.
A Morning Consult influencer report from 2023 revealed that 63% of Gen Z say they’re tired of inauthentic or overly promotional influencer content.
The answer? Stop treating influencers as media space first and start treating them as storytellers. The classic PR territory: build relationships, not transactions; prioritise fit, not fame first; let go of the script and lean into authenticity and trust that what matters will come through.
This doesn’t mean you can’t pay the influencer. Commercial realities have to win. But the mindset behind setting up that working relationship has to stay earned, and the desire to control because you have paid for something has to be parked.
Plan long-term partnerships over one-off posts. Encourage dialogue over direction. Give creators the freedom to tell your brand’s story in their own voice, even if it’s messy, humorous, or raw. That’s what audiences trust and will respond to.
5. Stop just measuring eyeballs. Start measuring impact.
PR isn’t about just ‘getting coverage.’
Social isn’t about ‘going viral.’
Influence isn’t just about ‘impressions.’
They all have a place as surface measures, of course, and all clients like to see data that can be shared around. That won’t disappear and has value as an output goal.
But none of these metrics reflect whether you’ve landed understanding, relevance, or belief.
What matters more is the ‘earned understanding’ metrics: quality of comments, message recall, inbound interest (especially a sales enquiry), web traffic spikes, organic advocacy, sentiment shift. And best of all, when someone you are meeting in a key sales meeting mentions what they have seen or read about you. Log that!
That’s what moves the brand needle. Smaller reach level numbers, better test of impact
And why invest in any brand effort unless you are willing to invest in the right measures of success?
6. Break the silos.
This is the key outtake. Your brand needs and deserves one voice. Expressed differently by channel, but consistent in tone, story, spirit and critically, intent.
PR should lead narrative development – and arguably should be much more involved in all forms of marketing strategy for authenticity and editorial context reasons.
Social should bring that to life in real time.
Influencers should echo it in the spirit of smart discovery.
When they’re disjointed, your audience notices. When they’re aligned and the story is genuine, your audience starts to trust.
Final Word?
The modern brand challenge shouldn’t be all about reach. But about resonance.
In a world where trust is fractured, attention is scarce and audiences can smell brand bullshit a mile away, the brands that do best won’t be the loudest, but they’ll be the clearest, most consistent and most human.
So, start with auditing your own brand story.
PR, social and influencer channels are the weapons to then land that. They are not fully separate disciplines – they are aligned relationship tools. And way more strategic than the way they are used by many.
Which is an advantageous opportunity, right?
If you grab it before your competitors.
Written by Richard Medley, Founder and PR strategist, Turning The Page
If you want to learn more about the impact that PR, social and influence can have on your brand, contact us here.
This is just one area of expertise we have in our Full Service Marketing Agency offering, see more of our services here.
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