Networking plays a large part in maintaining your business PR.

The act of engaging with others in your industry not only benefits your business, but also benefits your own personal social networking skills.

Here are four reasons why networking is good for your PR.

Exposure

It’s inevitable that the more people you tell about your business, the more exposure you get.

Networking with people in your industry allows you to access their audience and thus have further audience reach and exposure. Networking and creating ties with journalists as well as other businesses or influential business leaders gives you the opportunity to reach different audience members that you may not have been able to reach beforehand. This may be from them mentioning your business on their social media or at an event.

This is the key and most important factor in why networking is beneficial for your business.

Knowledge

By networking you don’t only get the opportunity to talk about your business to industry members, but you also have the opportunity to learn more about their business and the industry you reside in.

“Meeting new people is a great way for you to get any help needed with your business”

Having knowledge about your industry’s current affairs in the media and the key players gives you an advantage that many SMEs are yet to learn about. The more industry knowledge you have, the easier it will be for your business to navigate around the current affairs and appeal to journalists as well as your target audience.

Opportunities

The benefits of networking and building relationships are the opportunities that tie in with this. It’s about ‘who you know’ in the business world that truly helps with business growth.

Talking to the right business players can increase your chance of getting an investment and increasing your revenue. As well as the chance of getting an investment from an interested business leader, you also can be exposed to further opportunities with other business members that wish to collaborate.

Building relationships and organising events creates an incentive for both partners. You are more easily able to discover and secure coverage opportunities this way from not only other businesses, but from journalists – this is great for when you release a press release.

Relationships

Networking creates a gateway for building relationships with other business players in your industry sector as well as with journalists.

Relationships within your industry sector with other business leaders and journalists is a crucial thing to have and creates mutual benefits for both parties. Journalists are especially always looking for a story, so to have a good relationship with them is very beneficial for securing media coverage.

Meeting new people is a great way for you to get any help needed with your business. This could be through advice, recommendations, collaborations and even partnerships. This can also allow you to create lifelong friends with the same business journey as you, which is an excellent incentive for deciding to network.

Networking is an important part of any business leader’s role. As mentioned, there’s many reasons why networking is important for your business PR and its growth: the exposure, the knowledge, the opportunities and the relationship factors.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be frequent or time-consuming, but ‘the more time you put in, the more you get out’. If you want your business to grow and become a strong PR, then this is something as a business leader you must invest time in.

Simran Ghata-Aura is media relations assistant at Journolink.