Carrie Rose's 50/50 Reactive PR Framework: Spot Trends Before Competitors

Carrie Rose used to plan 70% of PR campaigns months in advance. Her agency, Rise at Seven, operated like most digital PR shops: strategize in Q1, execute in Q3.

Then March 2020 hit. The old planning model died in 6 weeks.

Now they run a 50/50 split. Half the team works on campaigns targeting predictable trends 6 months out. The other half monitors real-time data, ready to pivot when consumer behavior spikes.

Lockdown created daily news cycles that moved faster than approval workflows. Brands that couldn't react disappeared from press coverage.

But here's what nobody expected: brands got braver, not more conservative.

How the pandemic rewrote campaign planning ratios forever

Before COVID, Rise at Seven split capacity 70/30. 70% went to planned campaigns with 3-month lead times. 30% handled reactive opportunities.

Daily shifts in government policy meant daily shifts in consumer behavior. A campaign approved on Monday was irrelevant by Wednesday.

Rose expected companies to slow down. More layers of approval. More caution.

The opposite happened.

"I thought brands would be a lot more strict and not sign things off. But they're being a lot more brave to be reactive because if not, they struggle."

The external pressure gave internal teams leverage. When your competitor is getting Daily Mail coverage on trends you're still discussing in stakeholder meetings, executives start signing off in 48 hours instead of six weeks.

Rise at Seven now allocates resources evenly. Some months skew 60/40 toward planning. Others flip 40/60 toward reactive work. You need meaningful capacity for both modes.

How BuzzSumo, Google Trends, and APIs enable speed

You can't execute the 50/50 framework if you're finding trends manually. Rose's team built an internal monitoring system that alerts them within 24 hours. The foundation runs on 3 platforms:

• BuzzSumo tracks trending content by niche, location, and time period

• Google Trends provides the simplest real-time view

• Exploding Topics surfaces search terms before they peak

The internal API combines all 3 sources plus client-specific data. It monitors search behavior and pings the team when patterns shift.

April 2020: Black lingerie searches on Missguided's site spiked 300% the day Boris Johnson announced lockdown lift. People preparing for "sexy time" after months apart from partners.

Most agencies would schedule a planning meeting. Rise at Seven had reactive capacity already allocated. They pushed content within 24 hours while the trend was live.

You're not scrambling to find bandwidth when opportunity hits.

How to predict the news 6 months out

Reactive doesn't mean unprepared. The planned half handles trends you can see coming. Trends often repeat on a schedule:

• November: Burglary discussions spike due to darker nights

• December: Car accident statistics rise due to icy roads

• February: Valentine's Day angles dominate

• Ongoing: Bitcoin price fluctuations

BuzzSumo's timeline view shows what trends recur annually. You see last year's spike. You prepare this year's campaign.

But here's the key: plan the strategy 6 months out, not the execution.

Build the framework. Create the assets 3 months ahead. Reserve the right to pivot messaging based on what's actually trending when launch week arrives.

Speed of sign-off determines campaign success

The biggest barrier in digital PR isn't creative capacity. It's approval bottlenecks.

Founders used to fear bad press. Now they fear irrelevance. The approval layers have vanished in high-performing companies. Marketing teams have direct lines to the C-suite.

Fast sign-off is the new competitive advantage.

If you have a story about a 300% sales spike, you cannot wait 2 weeks for legal review. The trend will be gone. The 50/50 reactive PR framework relies entirely on trust.

If the client trusts the data, they win. If they hesitate, they lose.

Source: Carrie Rose @ The Marketing Meetup.

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