Wrap it up: here’s your end-of-year PR checklist
Before the year closes, a calm tidy-up now will save you hours next year. Use this PR checklist to wrap up the year, set clear baselines, and give stakeholders an easy-to-grasp view of where you stand now – and what’s next to come.
1. Export a year-end Brand Report (your brand performance report)
Why: A shared starting point for 2025/26 and a review of brand awareness and performance give stakeholders a clear view of progress.
Track share of voice, sentiment (positive/neutral/negative), and key topics. That gives an overall picture of impact, not just on volume, but relevance and tone – so next year’s targets are grounded. Make sure to benchmark against top competitors.
Action: Export the last 6–12 months for you and your main competitors, add a brief note on any big spikes, and save the graphs for your Q1 slides.
Try the Mynewsdesk Brand Report for a clean, shareable view of your brand performance. This is a key item on your PR checklist!
2. Summarise your media presence – include audio & video
Why: Your reputation travels in podcasts, YouTube, and broadcast as much as it does in print. If you don’t include audio and video in your media monitoring, you’re definitely missing the full picture.
Action: Export a year-end monitoring report that includes news, podcasts, clips, and broadcast.
Save the top moments with timestamps, tone, and transcript snippets. Start here: Media Monitoring and Audio and Video Listening.
3. Next on your PR checklist: refresh your newsroom and content hub
Why: Your newsroom is a digital press centre and often what AI answer engines read first. If it’s tidy, up to date, and well-structured, journalists and AI can scan and cite you more quickly.
Action: Update your About and boilerplate, press contact details, and key visuals.
Archive outdated posts, fix broken links, and make sure releases have clear headings, key quotes, and a short FAQ (e.g., what’s new, who it’s for, why now, assets, contact).
If you publish on Mynewsdesk, you can edit and republish in a few clicks via newsroom publishing.
4. Make a preliminary content plan for next year
Why: A simple, shared plan reduces last-minute rushes and speeds approvals. It also keeps your monitoring aligned with the themes you’ll be talking about and the narrative you want to maintain, so you spot relevant mentions early and can show impact against the plan.
Action: Outline next year’s announcements (launches, reports, events, partnerships, hires), key themes, and likely FAQs.
Add seasonal or industry moments you can own, and set aside a small reactive buffer for timely opportunities.
You can use Mynewsdesk’s free content plan template to get started.
5. Tune your monitoring filters, alerts, and dashboards
Why: Too many notifications hide what matters. A quick clean-up now means fewer irrelevant mentions – and a faster response when it counts.
Action: Tighten noisy keywords, add simple topic buckets (launches, issues, executives & spokespeople), and rank mentions by value so the most important rise to the top.
Set alerts to match urgency: issues in real time, launch-week updates daily, and a weekly round-up for everything else.
Then share one clean dashboard that stakeholders can open without spreadsheets.
You can do all of this with Mynewsdesk’s Media Monitoring.
6. Make your content answer-ready (SEO + AEO)
Why: In search and in AI answers, clarity wins.
If your content answers common questions in plain language and is easy for machines to read, you’re more likely to be shown and cited. (As noted in the newsroom item, good structure helps both humans and AI.)
Action: Pick your top five evergreen pages and releases.
For each one:
- put a one-sentence answer right under the headline (the key fact up front)
- use literal subheadings that say exactly what’s in the next section
- add a short FAQ (3–5 obvious questions)
- and point internal links to your main, definitive page on each topic (the one you want Google and AI to quote).
If you can, add simple structured data for your FAQs and your organisation (name, logo, URL, social links).
Keep this pattern for future newsroom posts so pages are “answer-ready” by default.
7. Set measurement for 2026 (and lock your baselines)
Why: Goals are easier to defend when everyone agrees what “good” looks like in advance. Make sure you set the measurement for 2026 as part of your PR checklist.
Action: Choose 3–5 KPIs to track monthly (e.g., share of voice, positive/neutral split, topic share, coverage quality). Create a saved view in your Brand Report and schedule a monthly briefing for your team.
If you use Mynewsdesk, you can export and reuse the same charts in presentations for your colleagues and management team.
Long story short
This quick year-end wrap gives you:
- a shared starting point
- a complete picture of brand performance
- a refreshed newsroom
- a first plan for next year
- alerts set to match urgency
- answer-ready pages for search and AI
… and KPIs everyone signs off on – so the new year can start in the best possible way!
If you’d like to learn more, you can book a short demo of Mynewsdesk media monitoring or see the Brand Report.
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