Digital public relations is a powerful tool to help businesses build their online reputation and brand authority. It’s a tool that helps connect businesses to their customers in a meaningful and positive way. Like traditional public relations, digital PR is a powerful way to control the messages said about your company. The difference is that it focuses on online reputation.
To understand the benefits, it’s essential to know what digital PR is and how it works. It is a strategy that’s used to help build awareness of a brand using digital or online methods. It’s a powerful tool that allows you to create the message and brand awareness that your company needs in a crowded online marketplace.
There are a lot of components to digital PR. It includes things like blogging and guest posts. It may include developing online profiles and building social media follows. Podcasts and online videos you share are other potential inclusions. All of this contributes to what people know of your business and leadership.
Utilizing it in the proper manner allows business owners to achieve numerous goals. Some of those benefits include the following:
This type of PR builds your brand, and while doing so, it also helps build your company’s credibility. People learn of you but also learn why you are a leader in your industry. This type of PR helps people who find you online know why you matter.
One way it can directly impact credibility is with an “as seen on” bar that’s placed on your website. It can allow you to create credibility when you’re quoted in articles. Being referred to by an industry leader can help, too. People see all that you’ve accomplished and know you’re the person to follow.
Keep in mind that 91% of people use online reviews and other data to form opinions of companies. They do this long before they agree to buy from that company. Credibility matters.
Properly placed and functioning PR like this contributes to search engine optimization (SEO). It may help by contributing to your backlinking strategies. A quote on a highly ranked and established website is going to help the search engines see the value of your website. A link to your website helps Google recognize its value.
This is a type of organic SEO strategy. It is highly effective at boosting your rank on the search engine results pages. Like all other forms, it has to be done properly.
Many companies use email marketing as a core component of their marketing strategy. It allows you to bring customers back to your website. PR can help you with doing just that.
Create an email that showcases your efforts. It can discuss some type of valuable bit of information. It may include some type of recognition for a recent accomplishment. This allows current customers to recognize your credibility. It also helps to boost their interest in buying from you.
Those customers may tell others about your company, too. That helps to build traffic to your website with highly qualified leads.
What are you posting on your blog and social media pages? If you use brand mentions, a component of digital PR, properly, they could help to build your social collateral. That is, they can help people learn about and want to work with you. Connecting on social media like this can be quite powerful.
Promote your business with brand mentions on various websites. When you do, you are creating incredible content for your social media. That helps people to, again, recognize the credibility of your company.
Digital PR can be an excellent way to get your company in front of the investors you need to grow your business. For example, digital public relations allows for the placement of valuable, highly positive content online. When a potential investor learns of your company and researches it, they come across this information. That fuels their interest.
You can also link to those positive mentions in your “as seen on bar,” as mentioned previously. That allows investors to see exactly what you have to offer.
One of the goals of this PR is to get your business in front of the people that are most likely your customers. Once you hone who your target market is, you can use brand mentions wisely to get in front of them. That could be done on social media. It could be about better ad placement.
The key here is that the content they read is valuable. It’s interesting as well as positive for your business. People want to learn about it. They’re interested enough to click through and visit your website.
A lot of the marketing you do now may have a reasonable ROI. Digital public relations ensure a better ROI. Every positive mention of your business creates a long-lasting mention online. That means that anything you invest in it will continue to pay off for years to come.
Some may not recognize the initial investment. No, you likely won’t get hoards of traffic to your site from a single PR mention. However, using it on social media, the brand credibility it helps build, and the potential leads you catch the eye of in your email marketing is where you’ll see the true benefits. This type of PR strategy is a slow burn, one that creates a lasting image of your business that continues to boost your online presence for a long time.
The goal of digital strategies like this is to help people learn who you are. What is your brand? Why is it the leader in the industry?
Most importantly, you want people to know why to connect, engage, and buy from you. It’s not a paid ad that lasts a few days. It’s a long-term investment in building your company’s credibility. Now’s the time to see how your brand can be utilizing digital PR to boost your credibility. If you aren’t sure where to start, see if Relevance can help.
