What is digital PR?
For many, the idea of PR might seem incredibly straightforward, but once you add digital into the mix, it can become quite difficult to define.
Different people across the marketing world and the SEO world will have different answers when asked the question, ‘what is digital PR?’
To keep things simple, digital PR is defined as a marketing strategy that is used to increase a brand’s awareness online by using a variety of tactics.
These tactics include building links to the brand’s website, distributing their expertise and gaining coverage in their target audience’s favourite publications. As a whole, marketers and SEO specialists often utilise digital PR tactics to generate measurable results.
This can include the number of links built, the traffic and sales generated and any online engagement through social media and click-throughs.
Digital PR vs Traditional PR
Traditional PR own the roots upon which digital PR was built. However, despite both strategies being built upon the same foundations, their differences are easy to spot.
The main difference can be seen through the channels they create, distribute and manipulate to generate results. Traditional PR is often seen using ‘traditional media’ as the name suggests.
This can include TV and radio, along with printed publications. In-person events such as promotional launches are also commonly seen within this branch of PR, meaning the results they work towards are usually quite different to digital PR.
Digital PR is, you guessed it, digitalised versions of traditional PR. Specialists in this branch often use websites, social media platforms, influencers and other types of internet-based spaces to promote and distribute content. All of these channels allow for the brand’s message to be shared and engaged with – a lacking element within traditional PR channels.
How can a digital PR agency help your brand?
Digital PR can support a business to reach its goals in record time, and sometimes even hit targets they had no idea they needed. Generating traffic to the site, converting the traffic into sales and building brand awareness and trust online are just a few of the ways digital PR can support your business.
Digital PR can effectively communicate whatever your brand wants to say, to whoever you want to hear it – all whilst improving the website’s SEO.
By employing a digital PR agency, you can rely on them to construct a digital PR strategy for your brand.
What does a digital PR campaign look like?
Digital PR’s fluid definition means it can come in many different formats and adapt to a variety of brands and goals.
Aims and targets can have a huge impact on how digital PR strategies are conducted, but the majority of strong digital PR campaigns include a variety of tactics and techniques. We’ve broken down three main aims of digital PR and the ways in which our specialists work to achieve them.
SEO and link building
For many ongoing SEO campaigns, digital PR can be used to boost the work being done. By creating optimised content such as blog posts, keywords and internal links can be added in to help boost search engine rankings and page results.
This content can then be distributed to the specified target audience’s favourite online publications, building backlinks to the desired link and boosting the domain authority.
Thought leadership & brand authority
‘Cutting through the noise’ is a popular term used to describe the aim of standing out. It’s popular for a reason too, as so many brands and businesses have perfected it and are now leaders in their industry.
Digital PR is a great way to work towards this, by creating content based on developing new ideas or providing insightful information directly related to the industry you’re in. Digital PR specialists can create different types of content and distribute it so the targeted audience sees the brand as an authority.
This builds trust and credibility – key if you want to build relationships with journalists and the audience.
Increase awareness and traffic
Increasing brand awareness and working to drive traffic are instrumental in most digital PR campaigns.
At Tecmark, we value newsjacking and frequent content creation to achieve this. Defined by David Meerman Scott, newsjacking is the process of harnessing the power of breaking news by placing relevant content from the brand into the news discussion. By creating quality content such as statistics or expert insight, specialists will then turn this into a press release to be distributed to the publications covering that hot topic.
This is an incredible way to get a brand or business in front of as many as eyes as possible, all whilst ensuring they are seen as experts and trustworthy – driving brand awareness and traffic at once in a much shorter period of time.
Manchester digital PR services at Tecmark
Want to know more about digital PR, how to be successful with it and use it for your brand? Have a read of our other blogs discussing all things digital PR, or check out our in-depth digital PR e-guide for the full details.
