The word “agile” is popping up everywhere these days. Marketers have agile marketing. Engineers have agile management. And now, PR professionals have agile engagement.

What is agile engagement?
It may sound like a buzzword, but the concept of agility is extremely important to your future PR success. PR Newswire defines agile engagement as the process of continually “listening, acting, reacting and reviewing” audience engagement across all your media channels – paid (such as advertisements), earned (social sharing, word of mouth), and owned (content that your brand creates).

The cycles of agile engagement
According to PR Newswire, agile engagement has six ongoing cycles:

1. Listening and analysis. Monitor the conversations happening about your brand and your industry, both online and offline, to develop your strategy.
2. Content creation and curation. Create and curate high-value content to amplify paid media campaigns and help you gain coveted earned media.
3. Audience targeting. Identify and engage key influencers, such as bloggers, journalists, and brand evangelists.
4. Message distribution. Distribute your message across all your brand’s channels.
5. Engage and interact. Listen and respond to the buzz and conversations created by your message. You can’t control the conversation, but you can shape it by participating in a way that’s knowledgable, caring, and human.
6. Measurement. Establish your success metrics in advance, and measure your campaign against them.

This infographic explains the cycles of of agile engagement nicely:

For additional reading, check out PR Newswire’s free whitepaper, The Dawn of Agile Engagement.

Do you use agile engagement in your organization? Please share your experience in the comments.