What is digital PR?

Digital PR is the practice of using digital channels and technology to build and maintain relationships between a brand or organization and its target audience. It involves leveraging various online platforms, including social media, blogs, forums, and other websites, to create and disseminate content that engages with the public.

Digital PR aims to increase brand awareness, improve online reputation, and drive web traffic and conversions.

It involves various activities, such as creating and distributing press releases, building relationships with online influencers, managing social media accounts, and monitoring and responding to online reviews and comments.

It also involves using data and analytics to track the performance of PR campaigns and make data-driven decisions. By using digital channels to reach audiences and build relationships, digital PR can help organizations to create a strong online presence and increase their visibility and credibility in the digital space.

The effectiveness of digital PR

Digital PR truly is everywhere. Have you ever seen those articles on news websites that reveal the results of a survey, with the topic loosely related to the company that has conducted the survey itself? That’s more than likely a digital PR campaign. 

What makes this type of PR campaign effective? They can generate a good amount of coverage – which will more than likely include a backlink to the survey results that are hosted on the company’s website – that drives traffic and authority back to the brand. Whilst this is good for brand awareness and recognition, it’s generally more widely used as an SEO technique, helping to boost rankings and improve search engine scores. 

They are also effective as they can come in many different formats, making them more widely accessible to various audiences and end-users. These forms are key for making a digital PR campaign a success. 

Here are our five things you need to know about digital PR: 

  1. Digital PR is a strategy that uses online channels to build relationships with audiences and increase brand awareness. This includes tactics such as social media, influencer marketing, email marketing, and content marketing. Campaigns might encapsulate each and every element to work side by side and complement one another, meaning they have to be well-thought-out and executed properly. 
  1. Digital PR involves creating and distributing content that is designed to be shared and talked about on social media and other digital channels. This includes infographics, videos, blog posts, and press releases.

    For some of the most intricate and successful digital PR campaigns, all of the above elements are used. The more diversified the content is, the bigger the scale that the campaign can take; media are more likely to pick it up, the general public is more likely to share and engage, and the campaign can pick up the pace quite quickly. 
  1. One of the key benefits of digital PR is that it can help to improve your search engine rankings. This is because links from authoritative websites and influencers can help to boost your site’s visibility in search engine results pages.

    Typically, for most PR campaigns, backlinks will be a strong KPI. It’s important to understand how these work and how to achieve them, as not all publications have it in their editorial guidelines to include one. By doing some research beforehand, you’ll be able to discover where these links are more likely to be included and hone your targets. 
  1. Another important aspect of digital PR is monitoring and managing your online reputation. This involves tracking what people are saying about your brand on social media and other online channels and responding in a timely and appropriate manner.

    Keeping the campaign digital usually means that everything is trackable, which is important for understanding how well it performs. A key part of any PR campaign is being able to adapt and evolve if something isn’t quite hitting the mark, so having eyes on the results at all times is vital. 
  1. To be successful with digital PR, it’s important to have a solid understanding of your target audience and their interests, as well as the online channels they are most likely to use. 

    Find out what makes them tick: how do they engage with news and media, are they more likely to share a written article or an infographic? Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and look at it from their perspective… what would you like to get out of the campaign? Is it education, emotion or something else entirely? Whatever it is, it’s important to discover what medium you’ll need to implement to make it happen. 

Final thoughts

So, there we have it, our five things you should know about digital PR. They are a key part of modern-day public relations and can help boost visibility and awareness quickly. If you’re still itching for more information, check out this blog, where we offer seven tips for crafting a winning digital PR strategy. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us below, and we can discuss how we can make digital PR a possibility for your business!

Author

  • Liam is our resident PR whizz - helping our clients and Monumental to grow their media presence. Before starting his public relations journey, Liam graduated with a degree in Journalism from Roehampton University, with the knowledge of how the media operates. Flipping his journalist skills to work well within PR, he has been working in the industry for close to five years. He operates from the comfort of Warwick, the very same place that J.R.R Tolkien got engaged, and is a huge geek at heart. With a love for all things Marvel and Star Wars, we often find him freaking out about the latest blockbuster or TV show when he’s not working his PR magic. You can get in touch with him here: