Digital PR is a key component of any effective communication strategy. Unlike more traditional distribution methods, digital content can have a long-lasting impact and be easily shareable. This long-term potential is an appealing prospect for many business owners and SEOs.
It’s no surprise then, that for many businesses, digital PR now takes priority over traditional distribution strategies.
Digital PR is now one of the leading ways to build domain authority to your website, helping it rank higher on Google.
In some cases, digital PR can be easier to manage in-house because it provides more varied opportunities that can be moulded to fit a business's existing strengths. This can be in terms of both resources and messaging.
Let’s dive a bit deeper and explore why digital PR is so effective and how businesses can create campaigns that maximise reach.
Digital PR, or digital public relations, describes the strategic use of digital channels for communication management.
Businesses use these strategies to enhance visibility online and positively influence relationships with stakeholders.
Digital PR is a term that can be used to cover a huge variety of formats, all of which will have different goals and implementation strategies.
High-quality content that is strategically created with stakeholders in mind is key to an effective digital PR strategy. Businesses can create articles, infographics and even videos to distribute to reliable and established sources for publication.
Content creation has many important benefits for businesses including generating traffic and leads as well as having an influence on SEO.
Many news outlets have a large and regularly updated online presence. With more people than ever looking online for news and entertainment, this has opened up many opportunities for businesses to produce concise but impactful announcements.
Utilising these already established and largely reliable news outlets is an important way to maximise brand reach. Press releases are one of the most popular ways to earn coverage in digital spaces.
In recent years influencer partnerships have become essential for PR teams. For businesses targeting online audiences and battling with algorithms for reach, influencers are a great way to access already established (and engaged) audiences.
Brands should ensure that influencers align with the brand image and ethics of the company before entering a partnership. Whilst there is plenty of room for positive association, partnerships can also cause issues for brands should the influencer do something controversial.
Social media offers significant growth opportunities to businesses of all sizes. Whilst it can be a significant time and resource commitment, it’s a budget-friendly option and an excellent way to create a sense of community.
Social media, for ambitious businesses, is key to creating a buzz about new products, services or events. These already owned and managed channels can be vital for distribution strategies and creating controlled discourse online.
Digital events allow businesses a global reach and plenty of opportunities to interact with a community of stakeholders. These engaging events are perfect for establishing thought leadership and attracting those who would not be able to attend in-person events.
For global brands or those based outside of their target marketplace, online events can be extremely important for engagement and building a community that values and shows loyalty to the brand.
Businesses can work in collaboration with other creators and companies to maximise reach and engage similar audiences. Guest posts and collaborative content with like-minded partners means that businesses can play to their own strengths (and the strengths of others) to create engaging content for a mutual audience.
Collaborations work for lots of different formats including articles, videos, webinars, podcasts, and even resources like e-books.
For collaborations to work, there needs to be a benefit for all parties, including the audience. This is how you can ensure quality content and an engaging experience for everyone involved.
With podcasts and videos becoming increasingly popular, there are more opportunities than ever for businesses, and business leaders specifically, to add expert commentary and become a face and voice for their brand.
Podcasts and professionally managed YouTube channels in particular often have a niche appeal that is perfect for more direct audience targeting.
Many business owners and SEOs rightfully see the value of digital PR and appreciate its many advantages for a business. It’s a tool that has an enormous impact on both communication and marketing efforts but can take a toll on resources if not properly managed.
Let’s explore why digital PR is such a valuable asset to businesses of all sizes.
Digital PR is the perfect option for a business that wants to increase visibility in digital spaces and reach new audiences.
It’s a scalable approach to communication, meaning brands can easily amplify their messaging across multiple platforms in a relatively short space of time.
Of course, placements like those on established sites, are much more difficult to land and might require additional expertise from external agencies.
At a very basic level, any business can implement simple digital PR strategies and see a positive impact on visibility.
Effective public relations strategies require continuous monitoring of brand mentions and an understanding of stakeholders’ sentiments towards the business. Digital channels and PR tools make this process more simple to allow businesses to respond and engage efficiently.
Digital channels, with real-time commenting and little censorship, allow businesses to gain honest and up-to-date feedback from stakeholders. This allows business leaders a valuable insight into the views of their target audience and helps to advise future decisions.
Crisis management requires quick but effective action from businesses, something that is much more simple through digital PR.
Brands can monitor comments and search for mentions to identify and resolve any issues before they escalate. The main concern for businesses is the scale at which this monitoring needs to be done, particularly if the brand has a significant online presence.
Many customers rely on digital channels for customer service so brands must perfect their digital crisis management strategy to help craft effective responses to these public (and often permanent) messages from customers.
Digital PR campaigns have huge viral potential.
Information travels fast in digital spaces and if a brand can perfect the balance between effective messaging and shareable content, it’s possible to leverage the digital space to create a viral brand moment.
Digital PR and SEO are two different focuses that can work together perfectly. They both aim to increase visibility and drive organic traffic.
Digital PR focuses on landing high-quality placements for messaging, these often already-established sites are also beneficial to SEO.
A key component of SEO is building high-quality links from reputable and visible websites — a challenging task that is also prioritised in PR.
Specialists in digital public relations will often have an established network of industry-relevant contacts that can also add value for those working on SEO.
For businesses, return on investment is key. In communications and marketing spaces it can be difficult to quantify results, particularly for more traditional PR formats like print media and television.
Digital PR is invaluable for gathering data and insights to help advise future communications decisions.
There are many analytics tools available that businesses can use to easily track key metrics and identify campaign successes to carry forward.
The ability to measure and identify success can make digital PR even more accessible for small businesses and those with limited resources. There are plenty of opportunities for free coverage with good content, but even paid opportunities are backed up by data so that budgets can be used effectively.
Both digital and traditional PR strategies are effective, and often they work cohesively as part of a wider marketing and communications strategy. Why then, are digital PR methods often favoured by businesses?
It essentially comes down to the return on investment for businesses in terms of both long-term gain and investment of resources.
Why is digital PR becoming more and more popular for businesses of all sizes?
This doesn’t mean that traditional PR is completely redundant.
You can read more on digital PR vs traditional PR here.
Businesses can utilise a number of effective digital PR strategies to manage communications. With an end goal of visibility, engagement and reputation management in mind, what are the best options?
Attention-grabbing stunts and viral moments are incredibly important not just for the businesses managing communications but for the outlets and channels distributing them.
With 76% of journalists feeling pressure to consider a story's potential for social media sharing, brands can capitalise on this by crafting content that is highly shareable and has that “viral potential”.
It’s worth noting that virality shouldn’t always be the end goal. Because these high-reach campaigns are so rare, some businesses lean into controversial messaging or campaigns designed to shock and start debates. This isn’t always appropriate for the business and often it isn’t easy to control the outcomes of these campaigns as they begin to snowball and gain traction.
In an era of short attention spans, interaction and engagement are key to campaign success.
Interactive content like quizzes, polls or even calculators and games are really effective for attracting and keeping stakeholder attention.
Interactive campaigns can combine digital and non-digital assets to craft a well-rounded and memorable experience.
Businesses can utilise the connections of external digital PR partners to access contacts and guest posting opportunities. Agencies, influencers and industry experts have established networks and specialist expertise when it comes to securing coverage.
PR experts can help businesses reach more niche audiences and improve the return on investment they see from digital PR.
Whilst digital PR and link building aren’t terms that should be used interchangeably, they can work together to help businesses.
Content creation, guest posting and even influencer partnerships can lead to natural and valuable backlinks that help with SEO and organic traffic generation.
Digital PR specialists with expertise in high-quality link building can be invaluable for businesses.
Newsjacking is a strategy that takes advantage of trending topics and news to generate buzz and reach a wider audience.
Content created with this strategy is very reactionary and requires a quick turnaround which is why it’s much better suited to digital PR channels.
For those that properly execute these strategies, there are lots of benefits, including immediate attention that is heightened by the topic's already established virality. Hashtags, keywords and trending topics can be a great place to start.
For businesses, it’s important that they fully understand the context of the trends and what they mean to those using them. Hopping on the wrong trend with inappropriate content could be terrible for the brand.
Creating your own digital PR campaign without the help of experts is a time–consuming but rewarding task. You’ll need to research, plan, create and execute the campaign in a relatively short time frame.
Digital PR is a time-consuming endeavour, so it’s important to have an end goal in mind before you even begin to create content.
The objectives you set for the campaign can influence the distribution channels used and the preferred creative direction of the content.
Common objectives might include increasing brand awareness, creating interest surrounding an event or product launch, or even highlighting leadership or expertise on a topic.
Audience research is a vital part of the puzzle. It determines the format and distribution strategy.
Without a solid understanding of your audience, it’s incredibly difficult to create content that effectively communicates your message to them.
Gaps and opportunities allow a business to maximise impact. Whether you’re meeting audience needs or capitalising on emerging trends and formats, these opportunities are extremely valuable.
When leaning into trends or taking advantage of opportunities, it’s important to act quickly. Not only will this ensure that your opportunity is still relevant, but it will also help you to stand out when seeking coverage if you can catch a trend before it’s over-saturated.
You can’t create just any old content and expect it to succeed. Audiences expect high-quality communication from businesses.
There are two levels that you need to consider.
Firstly, what is an audience getting from the content? This can be entertainment, information or anything else that is valuable.
Secondly, it’s important to ensure content is valuable to those who share or distribute it. Will your content get a website clicks and shares, is it worth more than the hundreds of other pitches a journalist has received this week?
You may need to lean on external partners to bring your content ideas to life and actually write or design the assets that you need. High-quality final products are much more likely to be shared and gain traction.
The next step is to create a well-rounded distribution strategy that fully utilises available channels. This should be a combination of earned media, owned media and paid media.
Some publications may want exclusivity on a story or article so this is something to consider during this stage of the process.
It’s important to leverage your own media channels to maximise reach. The company website, social media and partner blogs or networks can be a good place to start.
Next, you might want to use influencers or collaborate on supporting content to maximise reach.
Some businesses may use paid channels to kickstart their distribution and boost visibility.
Businesses can explore both free and paid channels when it comes to distributing their high-quality content.
Monitoring data and results (determined by initial objectives) will help to fully understand the success of a campaign and highlight areas for improvement in future campaigns.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be useful for clearly measuring successes and failures and highlighting how to move forward in a more impactful way.
Businesses in different industries use vastly different metrics to determine success.
Here are a few of the most common ways to measure whether a campaign has gone well:
Help A Reporter Out (HARO), now operating under Connectively, is an invaluable digital PR tool. It connects journalists with expert sources who can help with quotes, insights and expertise.
For journalists, it’s a great way to find new and exciting sources with plenty to say, and for businesses, it can help to land new placements on established sites.
Google Alerts is a free and essential tool for both crisis management and seeking out new opportunities and trends.
It allows businesses to monitor the web for brand mentions and industry trends that might be suitable for targeting.
It also allows companies to monitor what competitors are doing and any PR that they are working on that might be industry or stakeholder-relevant. This helps when running a competitor analysis and analysing the effectiveness of campaigns compared to those executed by competitors.
BuzzSumo is a powerful tool for insights into trending content and influential voices. There are a number of useful features for digital PR but the most crucial may be its content discovery capabilities.
BuzzSumo users can identify the most shared and engaging content across a number of social platforms to help advise the content creation process.
This feature also works for articles, blogs and videos to identify trending topics and popular formats.
BuzzSumo works beyond the capabilities of Google Alerts by monitoring things like backlinks as well as offering influencer identification for a more rounded approach to digital PR.
SEMRush is primarily known as an industry-leading SEO tool but it's also incredibly useful for digital PR.
At its core, SEMRush excels at keyword research. Users can examine popular terms, see search volume and discover how competitive certain terms are.
Its backlink analysis features are the perfect option for monitoring campaign progress and identifying new outreach opportunities. When properly configured, businesses will be able to identify gaps in competitor backlink strategies and work towards taking those valuable backlinks with more impressive content and more valuable insight.
For businesses who need to run lots of reports and evidence campaign success with data, SEMRush might be an essential.
Cision is an internationally recognised brand that helps PR professionals to promote and amplify stories to their enormous database of journalists, bloggers and influencers.
It operates on a huge scale and is definitely best suited to larger businesses with established in-house teams.
Businesses both big and small have executed phenomenal digital PR campaigns that have not only effectively communicated brand values, but worked wonders for the brand's visibility.
We regularly share great examples of digital PR and here are just a few of our favourites that use very clear digital PR strategies in their execution.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a viral phenomenon in 2014. It raised awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by challenging people to pour iced water over their heads and then nominate others to do the same.
Over 17 million people participated in the challenge and in total $115 million was raised for The ALS Association.
Why did it work? Encouraging participants to tag and nominate others gave the challenge huge potential for growth and helped it to reach a worldwide audience. The challenge quickly gathered the attention of celebrities and influencers who were keen to take part and support a good cause.
Norwich City received worldwide coverage and plenty of praise for their authentic and touching video for World Mental Health Day.
The video quickly went viral on social media with many praising the club for its approach to a sensitive topic.
Why did it work? The club identified that mental health is a concern for its main demographic of (mostly) male football fans. The club created a relatable and touching video that raised awareness and showed its own commitment to helping football fans access mental health services and support one another.
A Buzzfeed article successfully used the hype surrounding the Barbie movie to increase impressions and shares. It’s a great example of how monitoring trends and creating reactionary content can be great for visibility if you have a unique idea.
Why did it work? The article put a unique and shareable spin on a trending and engaging topic. The content appealed to those from all over the world who wanted to see what their own dreamhouse might look like.
No sales techniques here. I'll let you know what we can do for you. And if I don't think your website is right for Digital PR, I won't try and sell you anything you don't need.
Cupid PR, trading as DPR consultancy - Quay Street Manchester