“A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front-page ad.” Richard Branson
Richard Branson was right when he said that a good PR story is more effective than an ad on the front page of a publication, be it a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Today, with the realities that the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings with it, the world has gone digital. And public relations is no exception. So, what is ‘digital public relations’ and is this so different from ‘traditional’ public relations?
Today, if you aren’t marketing your brand digitally then you really need to rethink your brand communications strategy. Research information on Google has become the new norm and can be seen by the billions upon billions of searches that the search engine giant processes every single day. It’s not enough for you to just be punting your brand on your website. Don’t get us wrong: have a great content strategy and plan for your website is absolutely vital. However, you can’t rely solely on this. You need to have other people speaking about you as well.
The definition of digital public relations
According to experts, ‘digital public relations’ is about using digital marketing and social media marketing technologies in order to communicate to the public about a particular brand. The aim of digital public relations is to:
- Generate and awareness and understanding of the brand, and
- To spread the word about the reputation of an organisation or company.
The main tools that digital public relations will use include:
- Social media
- Content marketing
- Digital publications.
How does social media work with digital public relations?
Digital public relations professionals will use social media to help spread the marketing message that they’re trying to communicate. So, for example, if they’re trying to promote a particular course or event that the company is hosting, the digital PR team will share information about this even on the company’s social media platforms in order to generate buzz about this event and, as a result, sell tickets.
Content marketing and digital public relations
As we’ve said in many previous articles, content marketing is the go-to form of marketing this year. The reason for this is that with this type of marketing marketers are able to generate a substantial buzz about what the company needs to generate leads for at a very low cost to the company. (The reason why we say a relatively low cost is that it does not cost a lot to have articles written for you company. This is if you write them yourself or if you get a professional content creator to generate these for you.)
