The RSA Conference stands as the cybersecurity industry’s premier gathering—a place where innovation meets opportunity, but also where your message can easily get lost in a sea of announcements.
How can companies maximize their presence and generate meaningful results?
We’ve gathered insights from RH Strategic’s cybersecurity PR experts on how to make the most of this pivotal industry event. From strategic news announcements to executive thought leadership, these tips will elevate your RSAC presence from simply visible to truly memorable.
With so much news happening at RSAC, how can companies break through the noise?
Hally Wax: The first thing to ask yourself is if your product or solution is truly innovative. Are you changing the cybersecurity industry for the better? Are you first to announce this? Does your product or solution have an emerging technology underpinning? Are you leveraging generative AI or using blockchain?
If you’ve answered “yes” to any of those questions, then RSAC is the place for you, and you should get in early with reporters.
The best way to announce your product is to pair it with research. If you can use your research to identify a major problem that your product is solving, it’s a great way to maximize your coverage. That broadens your audience from just the media that cover products to the media that cover major trends happening in cybersecurity. Maybe you’re looking at breaches that are impacting a number of different industries, or increases in spending and investment in a certain sector. Pairing with research is a great way to strengthen your product announcement.
Know what the hot topics are at RSAC. If your news is impacting regulations or compliance, that always grabs conference attention. Corporate updates can also capture attention: Are you announcing a new funding round, or a merger acquisition or consolidation in the space?
Another attention grabber is a really juicy case study. For example, if you overcame a breach and you can share how you did it and with your best practices, that approach can resonate.
What are some creative ways that clients have positioned their events and activations at RSAC?
Brendan Hughes: One of the main ways we’ve seen is clients bringing together their community—their investors, customers, and partners—and hosting auxiliary events around RSAC like panel discussions and salon dinners. Invite media to cover these gatherings so that they serve both as media opportunities and as networking events that showcase thought leadership.
We’ve seen creative and successful approaches where clients host their own activations in branded spaces or find unique venues for invitation-only events. Another benefit is real-time content sharing—you can tweet about it, live stream, record sessions, and then repackage that content afterward. You can take clips for social media, use them in paid media, or distribute through other channels. It’s a really good way of driving exposure at the event and afterwards.
How has paid media evolved in recent years at RSAC?
Brendan: It seems every year we move further towards paid and away from earned media. The main media outlets that we want to get into, like SC Media, Dark Reading and the ISMG group, are moving towards a paid-only model.
We advise our clients to always set aside budget for paid opportunities, especially for key announcements like product launches. Paid media allows you to control your messaging and present your brand in a more promotional light than you would in an earned media setting. This approach consistently helps companies stand out at RSAC.
We recommend combining paid with earned and social media for maximum impact. By promoting this type of content during the show, you gain additional amplification afterward as paid media outlets share it across their channels, social platforms and websites. It’s an essential component of an integrated campaign strategy for the event.
Executives are incredibly busy at RSAC. How can companies make the most of their limited availability?
Madison Pappas: We have these conversations all the time with our clients. Our executives are busy. We want to make sure we get the most out of their time for PR. We focus on three key strategies:
First, what narrative do we want them to tell? We ensure this maps back with both the campaign we’ve developed for RSAC and their established thought leadership platforms.
Second, paid media opportunities. Those opportunities are valuable because you get a lot of great content that you can promote across social that day and beyond. You can clip this content and extend your executive’s visibility beyond the conference. These paid opportunities guarantee you’ll be able to discuss your chosen topics and receive coverage from the briefings.
Third, invite-only events where your executives can connect with customers, media and analysts. Media and analysts particularly value these opportunities because they provide direct access. It’s highly efficient—you’re basically taking 10 briefings and turning them into one.
How do you ensure executives come across authentically and effectively on social media during the event?
Madison: Social media is definitely a channel you want to leverage for providing real-time updates. It’s great to have a team back home making those updates for you.
I like to think in threes, so here are three guidelines for an effective strategy:
First, visuals plus text. This allows you to mix up the content to make it more engaging. There are a lot of opportunities to capture photos and videos at the event, which, when paired with thoughtful text, can initiate meaningful conversations.
Second, share in-the-moment reactions. There are always breaking news and hot trends coming out of RSAC. Having a team dedicated to monitoring those industry developments allows your executive to respond in real time and start conversations. This approach helps them reach beyond just the conference attendees to engage with a broader audience.
Third, stay true to your narrative. This gives your executive that authentic voice and ensures they’re not simply following the same trends as everyone else at RSAC. Instead, they’re consistently reinforcing their unique vision and perspective.
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RH Strategic is a Seattle and D.C.-based PR agency with a nationwide presence and additional global reach via membership in the Worldcom Public Relations Group. We provide strategic public relations for innovators in the technology, government, healthcare, and social and environmental impact markets.
