Building a brand and establishing its presence is a task that can’t be done overnight. Being the top-of-mind name for what you offer requires the creation of a strong brand identity and strategy and the use of various marketing techniques to make you known to your market.
Building trust is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of managing a brand – but how exactly can you do that and do it well in today’s highly digital landscape? One of the most effective ways to showcase your brand is through public relations or PR.
PR is storytelling; it’s a marketing strategy that utilizes storytelling to key stakeholders in the media. Every business has its own story: how it came to be, the inspiration behind the products or services, and the entrepreneurial journey of the founder who turned a business idea into reality. These are all meaningful stories that enhance a brand’s positioning in the marketplace, and PR takes these stories to your target audience.
What is Digital PR?
Digital PR is the use of a variety of online platforms to increase your brand awareness online and manage your reputation. The goal of this digital marketing strategy is to increase media exposure through channels such as blog posts, online news, social media platforms, and influencer campaigns. When done right, digital public relations can be an important tool to improve your reputation, increase awareness, and boost your online presence.
The best thing about digital PR is that it’s much more organic. By creating insightful, educational, entertaining, and meaningful stories and engaging directly with journalists and influencers, you can publish newsworthy content on reputable platforms to increase your brand awareness and engagement.
Whether that story is packaged as a press release, an exclusive interview, or a case study, digital public relations can tell it in a way that adds value to your brand’s customers and the audiences of the media you successfully partner with.
Digital PR vs Traditional PR
The traditional PR model focuses on securing media exposure for a brand through published articles on newspapers and television or appearances on TV and radio programs. Digital PR focuses on online publishing – getting articles and news stories posted on top-performing news websites and working with bloggers and influencers to showcase products on their personal social media platforms.
Benefits of Digital PR
Digital PR is an effective marketing strategy because it brings your business to the attention of a larger audience faster, and increased reach means more potential business. Here are 4 key ways your brand can benefit through digital PR:
1. Strengthening brand credibility
A reputable third-party platform with a large online following becomes a potential new audience when you work with the media to tell your story. Digital PR boosts brand credibility by increasing an organization’s online mentions, getting readers’ interest, and allowing them to take notice of you through a well-written, genuine story.
2. Increasing website traffic
The goal of public relations is to gain editorial coverage for your brand. When your press release is published in major digital publications, you get backlinks to your website, which helps drive more organic traffic to your website.
3. Improving your SEO rankings
Backlinks are a key component of how websites appear on search engine results pages. Generally, the more relevant the links, the better the website will rank. Digital PR helps secure backlinks for you; not only are you able to say that you have media coverage for your brand, but you’ll also be able to dominate search engine page results with several features.
4. Generating more leads
When website traffic increases, so do the number of new customers. Because you have improved your SEO rankings through digital PR, you can expect an increase in organic search traffic and referral traffic.
Public relations has evolved over the past decade and now goes far beyond print. And while traditional public relations methods still have their relevance in the overall marketing strategy of a business, brands must adopt an all-encompassing digital public relations plan to remain visible in a digital world.
At M&W Studios, we use digital PR to connect with your target market through strategic activations that tell your brand’s story to respected media representatives and key influencers.
Let’s increase your online presence together. Contact us to learn more.
