As an online business owner, you are likely to be extremely alert to the importance of cultivating a strong reputation for your organisation, online as well as offline. Furthermore, you will probably recognise the importance of taking every possible step to enhance and protect that reputation.
Online channels and PR techniques can make for a powerful combination
In the words of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) – the professional body for PR practitioners – “every organisation, no matter how large or small, ultimately depends on its reputation for survival and success.”
The same body has defined PR as “the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.”
This means that digital PR can be understood as a form of PR that is implemented through online channels and digital techniques.
It is likely to involve, for example, the creation of online content aimed at contributing positively to a given brand or individual’s reputation. It may also encompass the distribution of digital press releases, as well as the cultivation of strong relationships with online bloggers and journalists.
Digital PR, then, typically blends traditional PR methods with the latest techniques and trends in online content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimisation (SEO).
That word, SEO – what is the connection between it and digital PR?
Plenty of people down the years have mistakenly imagined that digital PR must be “just” about link building, or getting a given agency client’s brand mentioned online.
Certainly, those elements can play their part in the development of a strong online reputation for your organisation. But digital PR is also about telling stories that are compelling, relevant, and data-driven, as well as positioning the brand as a thought leader in its industry, and bringing target audiences along on a journey to becoming paying customers.
Google not only analyses the link profiles of brands, but also possesses an in-depth understanding of online reputation. Furthermore, the company continually adjusts its search algorithms to help ensure the pages that appear prominently in the search engine rankings deliver real value for human users.
You can expect, then, that if you make all the right digital PR moves with your brand, you are likelier to be trusted by those human users, as well as by the search engines – and to therefore rank higher for relevant terms. The interests of human searchers and the interests of the search engines go hand in hand with each other.
Would you like to have a deeper conversation with our experts in SEO and online reputation management, about the ways in which we can help your brand? If so, please enquire to us by phone or email today.