Beyond Vanity Metrics: Why Startups Need a New Approach to PR
For too long, public relations has been measured by numbers that are easy to report but difficult to connect to business value.
How many articles did we secure? How many people did we reach? What was our share of voice? How many media mentions did we generate?
These metrics have their place, but they can also create a misleading picture of what effective PR actually looks like.
For startups, particularly those operating across Southeast Asia, the more important question is not simply whether people are seeing your company. It is what they think when they do.
I recently discussed this in a TNGlobal interview on the future of startup PR, where I explored why startups need to move beyond vanity metrics and think more strategically about reputation and business impact.
PR should follow the business, not a fixed scope
One of the biggest problems with traditional PR models is that they tend to be built around the agency's scope rather than the client's business.
That approach can work when priorities remain relatively stable. Startups rarely have that luxury.
A company might be focused on fundraising one quarter, entering a new market the next, and repositioning its product or targeting a new customer segment shortly afterwards. A communications strategy that made sense three months ago may no longer address the company's most important challenge today.
This is particularly relevant in Southeast Asia, where expansion often means navigating multiple markets, media ecosystems, cultures, regulatory environments, and stakeholder groups.
A startup PR agency therefore needs to understand more than media relations. It needs to understand the business well enough to recognise when the communications challenge has changed.
At Mahou Consulting, this is one of the principles behind how we work with startups and high-growth companies. We believe agencies should operate as partners, not simply vendors executing a predetermined list of deliverables.
Visibility is not the same as credibility
Another issue is the tendency to treat PR as a direct sales channel.
If a media article cannot be traced directly to a lead, a customer, or a transaction, its value can be difficult to demonstrate. But that does not mean the activity has no business impact.
PR often works further upstream.
A potential investor may encounter a startup through its website, then search for independent coverage before taking a meeting. An enterprise prospect may recognise the company's name because its founder was quoted in a relevant publication. A potential partner may be more willing to engage because the business has credible third-party validation.
None of these interactions necessarily produces a neat attribution trail.
But together, they reduce friction.
That is why we think of reputation as a form of business infrastructure. It helps people who do not know your company yet develop enough confidence to take the next step.
Strong communications cannot compensate for a weak business, but it can make a strong business easier to understand, easier to trust, and easier to take seriously.
The right PR metrics are not always the biggest numbers
This brings us back to vanity metrics.
Media reach, coverage volume, and share of voice can all be useful indicators. The problem comes when they become the objective rather than the measurement.
A startup could generate hundreds of media mentions and still fail to communicate what actually differentiates it.
Conversely, a single well-placed article in a publication read by the company's target investors, customers, or partners could be considerably more valuable than dozens of irrelevant mentions.
That means PR measurement needs to consider quality and relevance alongside quantity.
Are the right messages appearing in coverage?
Are the right publications covering the company?
Is the company being associated with the topics it wants to own?
Are its spokespeople being recognised as credible voices?
Is its reputation becoming stronger among the stakeholders who matter?
These questions are harder to reduce to a single dashboard number, but they are much closer to the real purpose of strategic communications.
Reach is not the same as relevance. Visibility is not the same as influence.
Southeast Asia makes this even more important
There is also no single Southeast Asian media strategy.
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other markets across the region have different media ecosystems, business cultures, regulatory environments, and audiences.
A communications strategy that works in Singapore may need to be substantially adapted before it works in Malaysia or the Philippines.
For startups expanding across the region, this creates an important distinction between regional presence and regional relevance.
Being able to say that you have been covered across five markets sounds impressive. But if the coverage does not reach the audiences that matter in each market, the number itself tells us very little.
Effective startup PR in Southeast Asia therefore requires both regional perspective and local understanding.
And AI makes having a distinct voice even more important
There is another reason this conversation matters now.
AI has made producing content dramatically easier. Companies can generate blog posts, LinkedIn updates, thought leadership articles, press releases, and marketing copy at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.
But when everyone can produce more content, content itself becomes less differentiating.
The advantage shifts towards having something worth saying.
For startups, that means developing a clear point of view, understanding what they want to be known for, and consistently communicating ideas that contribute something meaningful to the wider conversation.
This is particularly important as companies increasingly compete not only for human attention, but also for visibility within AI-powered discovery and answer engines.
The goal should not be to produce more words.
It should be to build a body of credible, distinctive, and useful information that reinforces what the company stands for.
PR should be measured by the business problem it solves
Ultimately, there is no universal definition of successful PR.
A startup preparing for a Series A round may need to build investor credibility. A growth-stage company entering Malaysia may need to establish local relevance. A B2B technology company may need to make an unfamiliar category easier for enterprise buyers to understand.
Those are different business problems, so they should produce different communications strategies and different definitions of success.
That is why we believe the best startup PR starts with the business challenge, not the media list.
The role of a PR agency is not simply to generate attention. It is to help a company build the clarity, credibility, and reputation that allows that attention to create value.
That is the thinking behind Mahou Consulting, and it is why we believe the future of PR will be less about chasing visibility for its own sake and more about building influence that supports the business.
Because ultimately, the question is not:
“How much coverage did we get?”
It is:
“What did that coverage help our business achieve?”
At Mahou Consulting, we help startups and high-growth companies turn their ideas, impact, and business milestones into strategic communications that build credibility, strengthen reputation, and support growth across Asia. You can learn more by reaching out at contact@mahouconsulting.com.
You may also enjoy our related article on how strategic PR supports fundraising for startups.
