Looking to better understand online PR and digital public relations?
Can you use online PR as part of your overall web marketing strategy?
Is it really worth it to do online PR and digital public relations?
You are asking good questions!
Stick around, we’ve got some juicy answers for you.
In this article, we will go over online PR and digital marketing in detail. What is online PR, what are the differences between digital public relations and traditional public relations, what is the goal of online public relations, what are the different types of public relations writing strategies and the role of public relations for a company?
We have divided this article into the following sections for your ease of navigation:
- What is online PR in digital marketing?
- Digital public relations vs traditional public relations
- What is the goal of online public relations
- Types of public relations writing strategies
- What is the role of public relations?
- Takeaways
Let’s get started.
What is online PR in digital marketing?
So what is online PR in digital marketing?
Online PR is a marketing strategy used by businesses to improve their online presence and increase their online brand awareness.
Through online PR, you can engage with journalists and influencers to convince them to write about you and share your public relations material.
With online PR in digital marketing, you can end up getting high-quality backlinks and improve your overall website ranking.
The objective of online PR is to reach your target audience through a third party such as a blogger, influencer, podcast host or journalist.
Online PR can include:
- Online press release
- Online news release
- Fact sheets
- Social media PR messages
- Blog posts
- PowerPoint presentations
- Digital brochures
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Online statements
- Website messages
- Influencer messages
And more.
Your aim in online PR is to have content published about you building credibility and awareness around your brand.
You want your audience to see that others are saying good things about your company, your company has a great vision and culture and they can’t go wrong if they do business with you.
Digital public relations vs traditional public relations
How does digital public relations compare to traditional public relations?
Fundamentally, the objective digital public relations and traditional public relations is the same.
No matter the medium you use, you do media relations and public relations to build brand awareness and put a positive message out there in the market about your brand.
Your goal is to reach out to your audience and have positive and good things said about you.
Digital public relations is exactly the same thing as traditional public relations with the sole exception that it is done through digital channels.
Traditional public relations were done through mass media outlets such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines and so on.
Digital public relations channels are blogs, sponsored content, podcats, journalists writing online articles and the like.
Digital public relations as part of your digital marketing strategy
Digital public relations can be considered as part of a company’s digital marketing efforts while traditional public relations does not.
Consider that a successful digital public relations campaign requires that you build a good SEO strategy and inbound marketing for example.
These are other digital marketing techniques that will help your overall site ranking and online presence.
As you target influencers and journalists who write about you, you’ll end up collecting high-quality backlinks contributing even more to boost your rankings.
As you do digital public relations, you are naturally brought to work on your overall web marketing strategy benefiting your entire web presence.
You cannot improve your overall web marketing and digital presence through traditional public relations.
Public relations messaging
The public relations messaging in both traditional and digital channels will be in essence similar but delivered differently.
When you do traditional PR, your goal is to write a nice piece about your brand and have it published by journalists or others.
Your message will potentially have a sales focus to it.
Digital PR will require that you adapt your content to the material the blogger or influencer generally writes about based on the interest and needs of their followers.
If your digital PR is relevant to the audience of the blogger or influencer, then they’ll be happy to publish it.
If not, you won’t get published.
If you are able to make your influencers and bloggers happy, not only you will get backlinks from them but their audience may give some to you and even share our material on social media.
There is a difference in how your audience interacts with you
When you create traditional PR material, the PR content gets published with the hope that as many people read it and become aware of your brand.
That’s pretty much the end of the road for traditional PR campaigns.
With digital PR, the message is not unilateral.
You write digital PR material with the objective of soliciting feedback or a response from your audience.
You are doing PR and at the same time aiming to engage with your audience.
Calculating your return on investment
A notable difference between traditional public relations and digital public relations is your ability to measure your success along with your overall return on investment or ROI.
You can use SEO software, marketing tools, marketing automation platforms, website analysis and social media solutions to measure your overall digital PR success.
Such a granular way of measuring your online PR is not possible with traditional PR campaigns.
With online PR, you have sufficient data and metrics to calculate your actual return on investment.
This makes online PR a component of your overall web marketing efforts aimed at increasing your brand awareness, market reach and overall conversions.
What is the goal of online public relations
The goal of online public relations is to create an enduring positive impact on your company audience.
You want people to read something coming from someone else giving your company a positive boost.
Online public relations can be done for various objectives, such as:
- Reaching out to your customers informing them about your brand
- Acquiring new customers
- Giving additional reason for your current customers to stay with you
- To improve your online reputation
- Give reasons to your audience to remember you
The goal of our online public relations is to share your company’s message, tell people about your great company culture and sell them your vision.
The more you have people talking about you in a positive way, the more you acquire online credibility.
People tend to do business and work with those they can research and find information on as opposed to people with little content published on them.
The goal of online public relations is to give all the reasons necessary for people to trust your brand and reach out to you for business.
Types of public relations writing strategies
Public relations writing is a type of writing meant to persuade others.
We’re not writing a simple blog with informative content or a nicely presented article, we are writing for a purpose and to influence others in their decisions or views.
You can be writing to persuade the media, your company executives, your employees, company stakeholders, your clients or someone you are targeting.
You are looking to influence their opinion about you, think positively of you, purchase a product from you or you are writing to evoke an emotion.
Public relations writing requires careful choice of words and a good understanding of the intended recipients.
Press releases
One reason why you will do public relations writing is in the context of a press release.
With a press release, you are looking to issue a statement about your company, announce the launch of a new office location, release of a new product, the listing of the company in the stock market, discuss a major deal you’ve closed.
These documents are more factual in nature and drive a clear message.
Pitch letters
Pitch letters are letters you plan to send an influencer, a blogger, a reporter or someone that you’d like to convince to publish your material.
You need to have an effective public relation writing approach to quickly convince your reader.
To write an effective pitch letter, you must be to the point and highly effective.
What is your story, why are you important, how can they benefit from your story and why is this time-sensitive.
Provide important reasons why the influencer or blogger stands to gain by publishing your online PR content.
Editorials
Editorials are another type of document you’ll need to use your good public relations writing skills.
Editorials or content marketing substantially refer to the same thing.
You are writing something that fits into a blogger’s subject of interest and catering to the needs and wants of their audience.
Through an editorial or content marketing, you can write a nice piece about your company aimed at raising visibility and establishing credibility.
Editorials and content marketing are effective web marketing tactics to boost your overall online performance.
What is the role of public relations?
There are five important roles in public relations.
Essentially, the role of public relations from our perspective is to:
- Build up your brand
- Create the message you want others to say about you
- Generate leads to your business
- Manage your reputation
- Improve your company’s valuation
With an effective public relations strategy, you can create brand awareness and improve your company’s overall visibility.
You can create the type of message you want others to say about you.
You can share your company culture, vision and success stories.
You will generate leads to your business as people see that you are out there and highly visible.
You can manage your reputation by ensuring positive things are said about your company and cleaning up any potentially negative trends online.
As you do all of that and your company generates more sales, is well perceived by people and customers, guess what, your company value goes up.
You are directly increasing your company’s valuation with an effective online PR campaign.
The role of public relations in the context of your overall web marketing strategy is very important.
If done right, you will see direct and long-lasting benefits.
Takeaways
There you have it, a nice overview of online PR and digital public relations.
There is no denying that online PR can be quite profitable for a company.
Unlike traditional public relations, a digital public relations strategy fits well into your overall web marketing strategies.
As you influence others and create brand awareness, you end up getting high-quality backlinks, social shares and positive reviews.
You can even engage with your audience with a well-crafted online PR message or statement.
We hope that you will consider incorporating online PR and digital public relations into your overall digital marketing plans.
You can benefit from your digital PR over the long-haul.
What’s your take on online PR and digital marketing? We would love to hear from you. Drop us a comment!
