You’re a business owner despairing that your website isn’t in the coveted top three organic positions for your keywords in Google’s search results, Digital PR is the holy grail.

So what is digital PR?

Digital PR is an online marketing strategy that aims to increase the online presence and awareness of a business or brand. Digital PR agencies network with journalists, bloggers, and influencers and send online press releases to gain high-quality backlinks, social media mentions and improve their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Digital PR helps you reach your target customers by featuring your business on the websites they read, the podcasts they listen to and the social media accounts they love.  Ultimately, Digital PR positively impacts your website’s search engine visibility and ranking.

 

Quick Fact:

For best results, a Digital PR campaign should run alongside an SEO campaign. The two work hand-in-glove to secure better organic rankings and improve traffic. They capitalize on how google thinks.

 

The Rise Of Digital PR

Public relations, as the name suggests is generally reliant on mediums that reach masses of people. As the world continues to embrace the digital age, traditional media i.e print media, TV and radio is rapidly giving way to online media. Consequently, traditional PR is rapidly giving way to digital PR.

Naturally, we humans like to maintain the status quo. We want to do things the common way we are used to. But as it is, change is inevitable and this is true with the digital age. The rise of the digital age has made PR easier by increasing platforms on which a publicist can target unlike traditionally when one just had to fight for the attention of journalists to get their brand in the light. With the digital era, there is only much one can do. This leads us to our next sub-topic:

 

Common Digital PR Strategies

Most often the task of a PR agency or Team is identifying which combination of PR Strategies works best for a certain business. This is partly determined by the audience of interest. Some PR strategies include:

• Publishing articles online to gain high-quality backlinks and SEO ranks.
• Networking with journalists and editors to gain backlinks
• Publishing press releases and syndicating newsworthy content to earn press features
• Reaching out to bloggers to gain backlinks and mentions on relevant blogs
• Influencer marketing to gain mentions on influential social media accounts. This involves getting influencers on board on product features and reviews.
• Affiliate programs that pay a commission to bloggers and influencers who refer customers to your business.

 

Benefits Of Digital PR

After all, is said and done, lead generation and sales are the key metrics for measuring the success of your Digital PR campaign.

Build brand trust-This is the core of every relationship. The more people trust your brand the more they choose your brand. Product Reviews by bloggers or influences help sell your product as the top best.

Improve SEO and rankings — Publishing on high-authority websites and getting backlinks will push your website up the rankings for your target keywords. The higher up you rank on Google, the more traffic will come to your website. Digital PR and SEO go together.

Increased web traffic-The The more the people get in contact with your business on social media, sharing your content. This audience translates into web traffic.

Lead generation- Proper digital PR puts your products and brand in front of the desired audience. The more the audience is reached, the more clicks to your website, the more the leads.

Increase in sales- This is the ultimate goal. The goal is to convert this web traffic and leads into loyal customers and hence increased sales.

 

Role Of Social Media Platforms In The Amplification Of Content.

Content amplification is the process of helping your content reach a significantly wider audience. The term is an umbrella that houses various strategies. A concept used in content marketing uses the metaphor of a classic signal vs. noise metaphor. Your content is the signal, and everything else is the noise. Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram,  Pinterest, and Twitter play an important role in the amplification of content. They are an enabler and medium for your content to reach masses of people. Influencer marketing also makes use of their influence in these mediums to reach a certain niche. These social media platforms have various features that one can use to amplify their content.

 

 

Organic Social- Using free tools provided by each social network to build a social community and interact with it, sharing posts and responding to customer comments.

Paid social- Paying to display adverts (text, image, video, carousel, etc.) or sponsored messages to social network users based on user profile e.g. demographic. A cost is incurred depending on the type of ad planned; for example, many ads incur a cost per click (CPC). In return, your content reaches a lot of users. Some of the content amplification tools to boost reach are promoted tweets for twitter, Facebook ads, BufferApp, Hootsuite, and Taboola.

 

Let’s Recap

1. Digital PR is an online marketing strategy that aims to increase the online presence and awareness of a business or brand.
2. It involves creating networks with journalists, bloggers and influencers and sending online press releases to gain high-quality backlinks, social media mentions and improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
3. The digital PR campaign is a vital component of online marketing and provides best results when running concurrently with an SEO campaign
4. In the long run, lead generation and sales are the key metrics for measuring the success of your Digital PR campaign.
5. The role played by social platforms in content amplification cannot be underestimated. Organic amplification enables one to reach their regular social media followers while paid amplification enables content to show up on feeds of non-followers. Social media platforms enable one to promote their content using tools such as buffer App and ads.
6. Moreover, content amplification by the use of influencers also takes advantage of their existing influence and knowledge on various social platforms. With content amplification, one can have fans and customers from all over the world. The possibilities are limitless.

For companies struggling to increase brand awareness and generate sales for new products, Digital4Africa provides training and consulting in the area of Digital PR and social media marketing. Get in touch with us for help.