What is digital PR?
Online mentions and high-quality backlinks are high value currency, particularly with the world shifting to rely ever more on digital sources in the wake of the Covid pandemic for the most up-to-date content.
The intersection between PR and digital marketing
For us digital PR is taking traditional public relations practices and translating these for the digital world we now find ourselves heavily relying on. Traditionally PR was the practice of telling a brand story through the medium of news outlets, publications and speaking opportunities. Over the years PR had to become more creative as column inches became more and more competitive to secure - remember flash mobs?!
As social media and influencer campaigns connected brand marketing teams with the communication and PR teams, PR has evolved to be a core part of a marketing strategy, rather than an add-on, which it was for a lot of organisations historically. Integrating digital PR with your marketing plans maximises the chances of brand visibility by looking at how existing plans and campaigns can be leveraged for the media.
5 digital PR strategies to start right away
The great thing about digital PR is that it comes in many forms and there are many ways to build a digital PR strategy. Here are 5 tactics that might help you get your digital strategy started and begin increasing your brand’s online visibility;
1. Your blog is a piece of digital real estate
Think of your blog like you would a news site for industry news, opinion, and valuable advice. Invite external contributors to write a piece for your brand’s blog – you’ll pick up the backlinks to your blog when (hopefully) your contributors share their content that lives on your site. Start with asking strategic partners, clients or suppliers if they’d like to contribute. Providing thought-starters often helps too.
Hubspot has done a fantastic job of this. Their blog is arguably more than just a company blog now. It is a catalogue of ideas, support, tutorials, opinion and thought-leadership from their own team as well as external contributors.
2. Bring your story to life with influencers
Influencers give your brand a relatable face and a trusted voice. Whilst you may feel that you are relatable to your audience and trusted, an outside voice that, to put it bluntly, isn’t yours can be incredibly valuable. It’s why customer review platforms such as Trustpilot have become mainstream. If you’re new to influencer (or content creator) campaigns, each has their own brand in terms of style, values and voice, so finding an influencer that aligns with your brand values is extremely important.
3. Optimised online press releases
An online press release is an effective public relations tool in today’s digital world. They are created for many of the same reasons you share a traditional release, however, they are written to satisfy search algorithms. They include keywords, and visual assets and are created in the style of the online news stories you often click to read. The benefit is they can increase visibility in search and across social media platforms. Being an online medium, an online release works really well for news hijacking.
4. Tell your story with a video
It’s well reported that YouTube should be a consideration within your digital marketing strategy. 78% of people watch online videos weekly, with 55% consuming online videos daily (Hubspot). Back in 2016 Facebook were predicting that its platform will be all video and no text by 2021 (Quartz). As you can see video has some big investment shoes to fill so it’s no wonder that digital platforms are screaming for more video content. Consider how you can tell your story with video, combining some of the other points previously mentioned – why not attach the content to an online release? After all news sites are crying out for video content too.
5. The ‘always on’ news hijacking approach
News hijacking is jumping on the bandwagon of news headlines or trending stories. By providing commentary on that topic or using it as a Segway you can quickly provide another angle and boost visibility for yourself or your brand. As a strategy, it requires resources to monitor and be able to rapidly pull together reactionary releases or story pitches. The results have the possibility to build reputation faster than most other marcoms tactics.
On the whole, digital PR has separated itself as a strategy due to the immense value of high-quality backlinks. The trick is in securing these high-quality backlinks on high-domain authority websites and social media mentions without spending ££££££ in advertising! A good story angle, thought-provoking, unique idea, or creative campaign can secure online coverage without needing to invest a penny in paid digital marketing.
