Digital PR performs well. It doesn’t just ‘perform’ – it works extremely well if you make use of it in the correct way. Digital PR only works well when it’s supported by a good PR strategy. As you will be devoting a part of your digital marketing budget on PR, it’s vital to have a digital PR strategy which ticks all the correct boxes.
Corporate communication has a huge impact on every part of an organisation. PR crises have been known to shake up entire industries so, as more of the company becomes invested in PR, campaigns must show that their goals are aligned with those of the wider organisation.
If you’re not 100% sure about how to move forward in terms of carrying out your digital PR plan, what follows are step-by-step actions which will support you in forming as well as implementing a digital PR plan for your business.
Conceptualise the message
The first step of any public relations campaign is to brainstorm the message and effect that you want to spread to the public. This step is dependent on your brand and marketing and is essentially identical both in traditional and digital PR.
Create the message
At this stage, the two branches of PR begin to diverge though most principles of creating a good, compelling and effective message remain the same for both. Writing for the web requires a special technical approach (incorporating SEO, scannability and other features like links) but aside from some cosmetic differences, the core message and goal will be the same.
Deliver the message
Here, traditional and web PR diverge completely. Traditional channels for PR are:
- Print publications
- Events
- Broadcast media
Web channels range from the online equivalents of these (news sites, online events and Internet shows like vlogs and podcasts) to completely unique channels like social networks, website and email. The distribution strategy also differs since web media requires a much wider-ranging and diverse approach to reach an equivalent number of people.
Observe the response
this is one step where digital PR truly shines because measuring activities and sentiment online is much simpler than doing so in the real world. Finding, tracking and assessing online metrics is easy and can be automated with web tools. Where traditional PR relies on delayed and guesstimated data, web PR benefits from accurate, up-to-the-minute figures.
Respond
One of the main components of PR is responding to the public’s response to the digital marketing message, magnifying or minimising the impact as appropriate. Traditional PR does this by assessing feedback and providing a broad response through the same broadcast media channels, a process that can take a considerable amount of time. Web PR is the opposite: it relies on highly accurate data and involves giving personalised, instant response to commenters.
Follow-up
Most PR messages don’t exist in isolation and will be followed up with subsequent messages that have been influenced by the response and discussion around the first. This process is much slower in the traditional sphere than on the web where short attention spans and the deluge of new information mean that your brand will be forgotten very quickly.
Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing
Want to discover how to become a digital PR whizz? If you do then you need to do our Digital Public Relations Course. For more information, please follow this link.
