Digital PR Made Simple: Our Strategic Guide to Elevate Your Online Presence and Authority

Digital public relations has transformed how a brand influences and builds commercial relationships. While digital PR and traditional PR share similar goals of building brand awareness and shaping public perception, they differ in their approach, channels, and metrics.

Digital PR is a relatively new concept. While some companies are reaping the benefits of their digital PR strategies, others, particularly in New Zealand, have yet to adopt it. A brand may not understand digital PR or how it differs from traditional PR or digital marketing.

Continue reading to learn the essentials of digital PR, how a business can benefit from it, and how to execute an effective digital PR strategy.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

What is Public Relations?

Digital PR is a strategy that uses online platforms, such as websites, blogs, and social media, to build a brand’s visibility, credibility, and authority through high-quality content, backlinks, and media coverage.

A shared purpose connects digital and traditional PR. Public Relations is a communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between a company or organisation and its audience.

Key elements of traditional PR include:

1. Strategic Communication: Crafting and delivering messages that positively shape public perception.
2. Relationship Building: Fostering strong connections with customers, investors, employees, and media outlets.
3. Media Relations: Working closely with journalists and media outlets to get positive coverage for a brand.
4. Crisis Management: Handling situations that could negatively affect the organisation’s reputation.
5. Community Engagement: Building goodwill with the local community through events, charitable activities, or partnerships.

How does Digital PR differ From Traditional PR?

Traditional PR focuses on offline channels such as print, TV, and radio. Digital PR, however, shifts the focus to online channels. The goal is similar, but the focus and method change. Often, digital PR accompanies traditional PR strategies—think of it as an extension of PR or more strings to one’s bow.

Digital PR expert Mark Rofe outlines the difference between digital and traditional PR:

“Digital PR employs the strategies of traditional PR, while focusing on the outcomes typically associated with link building (in SEO), and delivers benefits from both disciplines. 

Traditional PR is more about the brand, their perception and reputation. So the comms being sent out has the primary objective of building brand awareness. As a side effect of that awareness it shapes their audience’s thoughts, feelings and opinions towards the brand.

Whereas with digital PR obtaining links to the brand website tends to be the primary objective. This is achieved through sending comms to earn links, and the side effect of those links is that it increases the brand visibility and rankings in search engines.

Though their primary focuses differ, digital PR can deliver traditional PR benefits and vice versa, as their strategies can overlap.”

Mark Rofe

Channels and Audience

Traditional PR focuses on media like newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio. Digital PR operates across online publications, blogs, social media platforms, and other digital outlets. Therefore, digital PR allows a brand to reach a wider and more diverse audience.

Longevity and Reach

Traditional PR has limited exposure—articles and TV spots last for a specific duration before disappearing. Digital PR content, on the other hand, is accessible online and indefinitely. The impact of digital PR is long-lasting.

Measurement and Return on Investment (ROI)

Measurement and Return on Investment:

Traditional PR might observe:

• Brand Influence
• Media Exposure and Reach
• Share of Voice
• Crisis Management Communications

Digital PR understands return on investment by observing more accurate digital measurements. These measurements can be broken down into three categories for a successful digital PR campaign, or ‘measurable goals’.  

1. Referral traffic: One way to see if a digital PR program works is by checking if referral traffic is increasing. This means you’re focusing on getting links, especially from popular websites with many visitors. You won’t see much referral traffic if you get a link on a page that hardly anyone visits.
2. Backlinks: While SEOs have always tracked backlinks, the approach in digital PR is different. Unlike traditional backlinking, which often focuses on quantity, digital PR prioritises quality. For example, you might focus on getting featured in specific publications your target audience reads or only pursue links from websites with high authority scores. Not all backlinks are created equal; just any backlink won’t suffice.
3. SERP visibility: Search Engine Results Page (SERP) visibility is a new metric derived from the Surround Sound SEO strategy. It takes a comprehensive view of the search results page for a keyword, estimating the potential visibility and traffic your domain could gain by appearing on every page that ranks for that keyword.

Digital PR and SEO Integration

The relationship between SEO and digital PR isn’t as complicated as it might seem.

Unlike traditional PR, Digital PR improves search engine optimisation (SEO) by acquiring high-quality backlinks and boosting online visibility, contributing directly to a website’s search rankings. A PR team should be an extension of SEO strategy and optimisation. SEO and PR can collaborate to benefit each other. An effective PR strategy should always ask, ‘Can we get SEO value from digital PR?’

How does Digital PR Contribute to SEO?

1. High-Quality Backlinks: One of the primary objectives of Digital PR is to create and pitch compelling content to reputable online publications. This often results in backlinks from highly authoritative domains, which signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and valuable.
2. Increased Domain Authority: Consistently earning backlinks from reputable sites improves your domain authority. Domain authority is a key factor in how search engines rank websites. Higher domain authority leads to better rankings in search results.
3. Relevant Referral Traffic: Links from targeted online publications drive qualified traffic to your site, resulting in more leads and potential conversions.
4. Positive Brand Signals: When your brand is consistently mentioned across trusted online platforms, search engines recognise this as a positive signal. Therefore, your search engine ranking is enhanced.  

What are the Key Benefits of a Strong Digital PR Strategy?

A well-executed Digital PR strategy offers numerous benefits to businesses, helping them gain a competitive edge in the digital space:

1. Improved SEO Performance: Digital PR helps acquire quality backlinks from authoritative sites, which boosts a brand’s search engine rankings and domain authority.
2. Increased Online Visibility: By securing coverage on prominent digital platforms, Digital PR enhances a brand’s online presence and ensures it reaches a broader audience. This online presence does not have the short life span that traditional PR outlets have—its impacts are long-lasting.
3. Enhanced Brand Credibility: Earning mentions and links from reputable online sources build trust with search engines and consumers, enhancing the brand’s credibility.
4. Measurable Return on Investment: Digital PR campaigns are trackable. A company can gather campaign performance, ROI, and growth data, allowing businesses to optimise their strategies continuously.
5. Audience Engagement: The interactive nature of online platforms enables more direct communication with the audience through social media shares, comments, and engagement. Moreover, a company can gather more information about how its audience perceives it, deepening and improving its relationship with its audience.

What are the Best Practices for Building an Effective Digital PR Campaign?

Creating a successful digital PR campaign requires thoughtful planning and the following best practices:

1. Create Compelling, Data-Driven Content: Journalists and bloggers seek newsworthy, unique content. Crafting engaging, data-backed stories or infographics can make your content more appealing. Create content that will be sharable by online publishers. Online publishers who find value in your content might share it with their audience.
2. Target Relevant Publications: To maximise the impact of your content, pitch your content to publications that align with your (1) industry, (2) target audience, and (3) brand goals. The more relevant the outlet, the better the chance of generating meaningful engagement and backlinks.
3. Optimise for SEO: Incorporate relevant keywords and optimise content headlines to increase the chances of your content ranking in search results.
4. Leverage Multiple Formats: Use a variety of content formats to create more shareable and engaging content. These might include infographics, videos, and interactive tools.
5. Build Relationships: Cultivate strong relationships with journalists, influencers, and bloggers. By doing so, you will secure regular, positive media coverage.  
6. Monitor and Measure Results: Use analytics tools to track the success of your campaigns, including backlinks, traffic, and conversions. Regularly assess performance and refine your strategy as needed. Review comments and messages to develop stronger relationships and a greater understanding of public perception.

Examples of Digital PR Strategies

Within a broad digital PR strategy, specific digital PR methods are known to generate fantastic results. Here are three examples:

Trading Up the Chain

This strategy, popularised by Ryan Holiday, involves seeding a story in smaller, lower-tier publications or blogs, generating buzz, and then gradually moving it up to larger media outlets. It’s about leveraging early exposure to get picked up by more credible and influential publications.

Newsjacking

This technique, coined by David Meerman Scott, involves inserting your brand or message into a trending topic. The goal is to ride the wave of an already popular conversation.

Original Research

Creating unique data or research allows brands to generate backlinks by providing content creators with something new to cite. Unique research can lead to higher placements in media, especially if the findings challenge existing assumptions.

Digital PR in New Zealand: Watch this Space

Digital PR is gaining traction in New Zealand, but its adoption has been slower due to several factors:

• The small market size and high competition make businesses cautious, with some still relying on traditional PR.
• The transition from traditional to digital media is gradual, especially among older audiences, and limited resources and expertise in digital PR further challenge its growth.
• Several New Zealand businesses focus on export markets, prioritising strategies that suit those regions.

However, digital PR is expected to see broader adoption as digital media consumption rises and businesses adapt to evolving trends. This presents a real opportunity for New Zealand brands to expand their reach globally by leveraging digital PR strategies, positioning themselves ahead of competitors in both local and international markets.

Elevate Brand Success with Digital PR

Digital PR equips a company with more tools in its PR toolbox. It enhances a company’s scope and reach and provides greater data and metrics for quantifying success. By integrating SEO and link-building strategies, targeting relevant online publications, and creating engaging content, businesses can strengthen their digital presence and build lasting relationships with their audience. A strong digital marketing agency can boost a brand’s SEO and help maintain trust and credibility in the ever-evolving digital world.

The team at Pure SEO are experts in digital, ensuring your brand has a strong and measurable online presence. Contact us today.