In a world dominated by the Internet, 46% of small businesses in the U.S still don’t have a website. And since more than 80% of consumers in the U.S do online research before they purchase something, staying off the web is a mistake your company can’t afford to make.
One of the biggest things your company misses out on by avoiding the Internet is the chance to utilize digital PR (or public relations). But what is digital PR, and how will it help your business?
Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore! We’re here to answer those questions and more! So sit back, get comfortable, and let’s get this thing started!
What Is Digital PR?
Don’t give us those looks, the definition of digital PR isn’t complicated. It refers to any form of public relations work that happens over the Internet and/or computers. This work helps to spread awareness of your particular brand to the masses at large and grants you a large level of control over your public image.
Some of the primary methods of digital PR include creating your articles, building a connection with various big-name journalists to make articles for you, spreading the word on a blog. Paying influencers (i.e, Kylie Jenner) on social media sites to have them advocate for your product or business is another solid choice. Finding ways to bring your offline press conferences or gatherings online is another popular method of building strong digital PR.
Digital PR rose in the ranks over time as the popularity of the Internet increased, but also because conventional forms of PR began to die out. So if you assume your company can get by on newspaper or magazine ads, you’re in for a rude awakening.
The Advantages of Digital PR: Part 1
One of the biggest advantages of digital PR is the sheer reach across the country that digital PR affords you. With the right marketing campaign, your brand will end up in front of millions, if not billions of potential customers. This kind of mass awareness results in companies springing up overnight.
Take Roman Originals (the company who designed that “what color is the dress” garment that went viral several years ago) or the ASLA with the ice bucket challenges. These organizations or businesses aren’t new to the world, but they sat much lower in the public consciousness until the day they went viral.
Another advantage of digital PR is that it allows you to target a specific audience and curate that audience to your desire. Digital PR campaigns allow you to target your ads towards people based on their age, gender, interests, etc. This targeting even extends to establishing backlinks on sites your target audience is most likely to visit (i.e, targeting older audiences with Facebook is a wiser choice than using Twitter).
Through all this, you get your product in front of the people most likely to buy it as opposed to the crapshoot that was print PR.
Digital PR also goes hand-in-hand with SEO (or search engine optimization). Using SEO keywords helps to ensure your PR campaign gets to as many eyes as possible. In turn, the more your campaign spreads around the Internet, the more links pop up, which funnels right back into building your SEO.
The Advantages of Digital PR: Part 2
Need more reasons to hop on board the digital PR train? How about the reputation bonus it will give to your business?
Having strong digital PR helps to ensure that customers see your business as someone they can trust rather than another soulless clickbait site trying to scam them out of their money. In addition to building that legitimacy, you’re also building familiarity with your brand. So, the next time your customer needs something you sell, you’re more likely to enter their head as who to get it from.
Digital PR also boasts the ability for you to see how well your campaign is doing at any given time. Special online tools like Google Alerts help you to keep a real-time account of when and where your company gets mentioned. This also helps your PR team stay on top of any bad press your company gets before it blows up into a real problem.
Finally, a big pro of digital PR is that it adapts to the changing landscape of the Internet with ease. For example, intrusive ads have fallen out of favor with customers and will likely leave a sour taste in their mouths as to your image. So, digital PR got around that by doubling down on building a network of backlinks from reputable sites, building a more organic SEO as opposed to one forged by throwing a lot of money at the problem.
The Do’s and Do-Not’s of Digital PR
Now that you know all about what digital PR is and what advantages it has, what tricks should you remember to stay ahead in the digital landscape?
For starters, knowing which type of media to use online is a big boon with digital PR. Videos grab a customer’s attention better than a static picture ad, and relying too much on press releases centered around your website is a recipe for disaster.
Staying involved with the process often is also a critical step. Bad publicity spreads like wildfire, and failing to stay on top of your image at all times will end in chaos if you’re not careful. Your business’s image will also receive a negative downturn if you’re not on top of communications with potential journalists or influencers, so be sure to stay on top of that as well.
It’s a PR World We Live In
Congratulations! You now know all about what digital PR is, what it’s advantages are, and what steps to remember when implementing it! So what do you do now?
Well, if you want to learn more about forging your business into a financial behemoth, check out some of the other posts on our blog! So until next time, keep on your PR campaign and you too will become a business legend!
You must be logged in to post a comment.