We reveal the top reasons why digital PR should be an important part of your digital strategy.
What is Digital PR?
The chartered institute of public relations defines it as:
‘The discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning, understanding and support, influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’
It is about managing reputation, the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Source
Why is Digital PR important?
- Builds brand recognition
- Gets your brand in front of customers
- Builds industry and media trust
- Builds client reputation as recognised industry leader
- Increases brand awareness
- Contributes to SEO
Historically, PR professionals had focused on print media, and although still important, organisations need to recognise the need to achieve coverage and external links in their online counterparts as well as links on relevant authoritative sites, blogs and social media channels.
What is a link?
External links are hyperlinks that connect to another domain. Achieving links from trusted influential websites by a journalist or blogger is a ranking factor in the search engines eyes. The more links, coverage and mentions of your brand online, the more the search engine will recognise you as a trusted authority in your field and in-turn it will start to increase your position in the search engine results.
We now live in a digital age. According to the Office of National Statistics, 76% of adults in 2016 used the internet to find information about goods and services. The more mentions of your brand in the media, the more exposure to consumers your brand will receive. Consumers trust journalists and personal recommendations; according to Ogilvy’s annual survey when it comes to buying a product, 37% said traditional earned media is a leading channel for driving purchasing decisions. This highlights the impact achieving earned coverage can have in a purchase decision.
Measuring impact
A benefit of digital PR is being able to measure the impact of your placement. In the past, you would evaluate print coverage value by circulation, readership and advertising value equivalent, which cannot be accurate. Digital methods, however, are precise and based on facts; website authority, click-through rates, time spend on site, conversions and analytics reveal a more effective way of calculating the outcome of coverage gained.
How do you achieve links?
You need a digital PR strategy. The aim being to obtain coverage and links on a range of relevant authority sites and blogs. These are achieved through proactive and reactive PR activities. Our team use a range of tactics and resources to achieve this. Press release creation, creative campaigns, data insights stories are a few examples of how we can create campaigns for your brand.
To find out more about how PR can elevate your business, please get in touch.