"Don't expect immediate major publications in Forbes or weproject," — communications in IT and how to promote technological products

Recently, a live stream took place in our Telegram channel The Tech, featuring Shamil Shakirov, founder of the Central Asia PR Hub. He shared his experience and discussed communications in IT, providing a detailed breakdown of the key aspects of this topic.

About myself

I am a co-founder of the PR Hub Central Asia agency and have been working in public relations for eight years. During this time, I have collaborated with various international companies such as AliExpress CIS, Yandex.Eats, Yandex.Ultima, and Kinopoisk. I started by working with startups when the market was more active, and now I work with large corporations.

When entrepreneurs ask me where to start with PR, I always say: it is important to define a strategy and understand what goals you want to achieve. The first step is positioning. It is crucial to understand what you want to achieve through PR and how to talk about the company and its products. For example, in a year, you might want to be known as experts in AgroTech or as the most technological FinTech startup in Uzbekistan. This helps avoid spreading yourself too thin across all media at once, allowing you to choose the most relevant channels and gradually build your positioning.

It is equally important to show how you differ from competitors. Since there is a lot of content nowadays, from the very first days, you should highlight the uniqueness of your startup—this could be a technological feature, an interesting personal brand of the founder, or a unique company story.

I have seen examples where entrepreneurs talked about their hobbies. One was involved in motorsports and drew parallels between racing and working in a startup—this captured media attention.

Do not expect major publications in Forbes or weproject right away. Media presence accumulates gradually. You can start with industry publications, Telegram channels, podcasts, or your own blog. Gradually, you build up your media presence and become ready for major media outlets, already equipped with a ready-made storytelling approach and examples of materials about you.

Channels and formats

Everything depends on the sales strategy and the business sphere. In B2B, much is built on trust in the product creators, so up to 60-70% of efforts can be directed toward the founder's personal brand. In B2C, more attention is paid to the product: its convenience, reviews, and brand recognition. It is important to maintain a balance: gradually promote both the product and the personal brand so that people understand what they are paying for.

If the founder is an introvert and focuses more on the product, PR specialists help them. They select formats that do not require constant public speaking: articles, one-on-one meetings with target journalists, LinkedIn posts. A PR specialist can fully manage communications, negotiate materials, and help prepare factual content for articles. Media training also helps develop public speaking skills and confidently present oneself at conferences, in front of journalists, and investors.

In cases where the founder does not coordinate their comments with PR specialists, long-term internal work is required. It is important to show the consequences of uncoordinated appearances: negative comments, investor questions, customer dissatisfaction. Sometimes it is necessary to "step on rake" so that the founder understands the importance of coordinating the format and content. In difficult cases, only crisis management or changing the company remains.

PR in IT is more complex due to the technological specificity of products. Often, a deep dive into terminology and an understanding of the product's advantages are required. IT companies strive to demonstrate their technological prowess, participating in the "technology race," which requires preparing materials with a large number of technical details. At the same time, IT companies are more open to unconventional PR methods: creative projects, AI agents for promotion, UGC content, ER videos, which allows for the use of formats that might raise questions in more conservative spheres.

Mistakes and effectiveness

There are several common mistakes in IT PR. The first is the use of overly complex terminology. IT companies sometimes forget that the material is prepared not for a narrow industry publication but for a broad audience. If terms are not explained, readers have questions and misunderstandings, which reduces the conversion and reach of the material.

The second mistake is the lack of consistency. PR requires constancy: regular repetition of formats and attempts to implement new approaches. One spontaneous material will not yield significant results. PR specialists work for the brand's image for years, while some companies want to reap all the benefits "with minimal bloodshed" immediately.

The third mistake is the lack of a crisis strategy. In IT, data leaks, hacking attacks, and other incidents often occur. Sometimes the press office reacts too slowly, after several days, when the information is already outdated. A pre-written crisis strategy with a database of possible comments and crisis scenarios helps respond quickly and explain what is happening.

For a small startup, it is important to first announce itself and tell about its existence. Many startups do not have social media, are not represented in the media, and few people know about the product or founders. The starting point can be an announcement of a launch, product updates, or changes in the company. This creates a vector for further storytelling: new features, team appointments, career achievements.

Next, you can choose communication channels: media, opinion leaders, Telegram channels, podcasts, offline events, or creative formats. The main thing is to find a suitable way to tell about yourself and your company.

Life hacks

If a startup is just starting and no one knows about it yet, there are several ways to get into the media and to influencers without large investments or loud achievements.

First, gather everything the company has: the team, their experience, and unique stories. For example, someone on the team might have worked at a large company and left for a startup—that is already an interesting story.

Second, think about storytelling. You can start with columns in small publications, where you will tell about non-standard personal stories of the team. Example: one entrepreneur talked about how his hobby of playing the board game Go helped develop strategic thinking and startup management skills.

You can also look at yourself and the team, find unusual, interesting facts, conduct market research, and tell about user or entrepreneur problems in your field. It is important not to be afraid of rejections: PR is often associated with many rejections, but it is worth trying different approaches and small channels, gradually moving toward major media.

Regarding PR effectiveness, there are short-term and long-term metrics.

Short-term:
— reach in new media and social networks
— number of publications and mentions
— audience engagement: reposts, comments.

Long-term metrics:
— share of company mentions in the media market
— tone of publications
— brand recognition and associations with it.

An easy way to evaluate is the growth of requests from journalists, conferences, and other platforms for company speakers to participate. If there are more of them, it means PR is working and the brand is becoming more noticeable.

Reputation and crises

The main rule during a wave of hate is to keep a cool head. First, you need to deal with emotions and separate facts from emotional reactions to avoid making thoughtless statements. There are cases when brands start arguing with bloggers or even threatening legal consequences—from an image perspective, this only exacerbates the situation.

The first thing to do is to assess whether the hate is justified. For example, it may be related to a real problem: support is not working, the product is broken, users cannot buy tickets, and so on. The second step is to assess the scale of the wave: who is writing, how many publications are coming out, whether they are reposted, and what their weight is. If it is one publication by a small blogger, you may not need to react. If, however, a real "snowball" wave arises, comments are necessary.

It is also important to move communication with negatively disposed users to private conversations instead of public threads. This helps avoid the growth of a hate wave when people start venting anger not directly related to the company.

If the crisis is large-scale, consider hiring consultants or crisis agencies. It all depends on the volume of the problem: if there are many publications—20-30 and more—your team may not have enough experience. Crisis agencies specialize in such cases and can quickly orient themselves. Even experienced PR specialists without crisis management practice often face difficulties—each case is unique, and practice always differs from theory.

Resources and team

Usually, companies turn to agencies when they need a rapid increase in PR activity. For example, when entering a new region or launching a new product. An internal PR team may be busy with "routine"—daily stable tasks—and simply not have resources to prepare for such large-scale projects.

Agencies are also useful if a product launch or a planned information event could potentially cause a crisis. For example, a large bank announces the closure of a product or a reduction in deposit interest rates—an external consultant will help assess the risks to the image from the outside, without blinding the internal team's view.

Often, a hybrid scheme works: the in-house team handles everyday projects, while the agency comes up with special projects to increase reach, media presence, launch memes, or UGC content. This approach is becoming increasingly popular.

Interesting PR case

Like all PR specialists, I followed Jennifer Lopez's concert—it caused a lot of negativity and a lot of positivity, and the reach on social networks and in the media was huge. Just one information event with a cricket is worth noting. This is an example of "party" funny cases that immediately catch the eye.

It is always pleasant when there is a specific result, and the client gives feedback that PR really worked. For example, I worked with a B2B platform in the UAE that helped brands enter the country's market. We had an interview on one YouTube channel, and the founder wrote that several large leads came from this interview—it was pleasant.

Another situation—I have been collaborating for a long time with one FinTech platform that deals with marketing automation. There we often do creative projects, and analysts then share statistics on brand search queries or changes in brand attitude. It is pleasant when you can correlate the growth of these queries with the moment when some creative special project was released. That is, digital results provide tangible confirmation of the effectiveness of PR, which itself is quite abstract and difficult to quantify.

I also like crisis cases: when you have to give public comments, bypass hundreds of publications, ask to correct a factual error, or change the headline—and it works. In such moments, there is professional satisfaction from well-done work.