Online PR – To keep your Reputation and visibility intact

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time from your very busy schedule to read my blog(s). I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. Friends, presenting 60^th blog titled “Online PR – To keep your Reputation and visibility intact”.

 

COVID19 has made online reputation more important than ever and online reputation built by companies during the pandemic will have a lasting impact. The behaviour of brands during the pandemic would influence future decisions of the customers / buyers whether they bought from them afterwards, according to Edelman’s Covid-19 brand trust report. 

During Covid-19, social media platforms have become the main source of information surpassing print and other digital media platforms. More and more people are now relying on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp to stay updated. Social media has become indispensible component of our daily routine which has led to a spike in online media consumption.  WWW is the only place which is not quarantined for quarantined consumers and the brands, including ones that do not even have a social page yet, will need to explore the realms of it.

 

In 2020 over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat have become major outlets for businesses to reach their customers on and grow their audience with. Hence, the emergent need of Online PR.

 

Friends, Online PR is very similar to traditional PR in the sense that it’s about influencing people rather than buying placement for brand content. The influence could result in a story in a magazine, newspaper or blog. It could also result in other online pick-up, including social media. Typically, when people talk about traditional PR, they are referring to traditional media: newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. With online PR, traditional media brands may still be a target, but often online PR targets online properties, along with an array of other platforms and networks, from search to social. This online approach influences:

 

•         Columnists & traditional writers (just like traditional PR)

•         Bloggers: personal & professional

•         Websites & brand sites

•         Twitter  & LinkedIn users

 

•         Social media users: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Flicker, etc.

•         Awards, events and exhibitions

•         Directories, lists and organizations

•         Web searchers

 

The outreach for online PR may be both direct & indirect. The business can employ hash tags and keywords alongside email and snail mail. At the heart of both traditional and online PR is story-telling. This is never going away; story-telling and quality content help position stories for absorption, both online and offline.

 

There are a wide variety of tactics and proportions - with some favoring search while others favour placing online content as editorials and guest blogs. Online PR incorporates journalism, creative writing and storytelling, sales, media, SEO, social media, community management, customer relations, web design & management and on and on.

 

Online PR efforts can have media or influencer outlets but can also be seen directly by potential customers or the consumer market. Online press releases may direct traffic to a brand or corporate website. Typically those distributed releases are displayed as search results, which consumers may find for medium and long tail queries.

 

Online press release distribution options include:

•         PRNewswire

•         Business Wire India

•         Marketwire

•         Cision

•         PRWeb

•         HARO – Help a reporter out

•         Newswire Online

•         PRIndiaWire.Com

•         Globe Newswire

•         Muck Rack

 

Other online PR best practices incorporate real-time marketing efforts, reputation management (via alerts tracking campaign performance, building brand buzz and addressing corporate crises), viral and word-of mouth marketing and influencer marketing. For instance, finding and connecting with influencers can help give a B2B brand or product release a big boost. Yet first you need to engage with that influencers’ social network and show interest in their content and the industry area they focus upon.

 

The B2B using online PR tactics will want to explore:-

• Industry websites

• Niche or topical websites

• Blogs

• Influential social media accounts

• Media-sharing websites & social networks, including You tube and Flickr

• Forums: Topic-focused, industry-related and niche

• Wikis

• Twitter feeds

• LinkedIn: news and groups

• Social media & bookmarking websites

• Personal blogs with niche audiences

 

When used correctly and consistently, companies can extract many unique leads out of online PR efforts. Online PR is simply an extension of the inbound marketers’ efforts to have the right messages seen by the right people in the right context.

 

An Online PR campaign strategy should have a mixture of tactics and complement what other digital activities will be happening. The PR strategy should work in unison with the traditional PR plans, and not as an aftermath. When pitching a strategy to a client, this is the perfect time to suggest new ideas, outlets and directions to pursue, as well as give them examples of what other names in their industry are up to.

 

Tools and tactics that are most effective for online PR are as under;

 

Search Engine Optimization:

Search is the top method for finding information online. Keyword optimizing news content is a key device for Online PR professionals. Optimizing news content for relevant and popular phrases can help that content rank well in the search engines. Improved search visibility helps marketing efforts, online reputation and it can attract analysts, journalists and bloggers researching your industry.

 

Social Media:

Understanding social media relations is an important part of a Online PR effort. The audiences a company is trying to reach or influence are spending time on and being influenced by social media. Social participation in an Online PR platform means connecting with and engaging influentials and customers to perpetuate a positive brand image as well as identifying and empowering brand ambassadors. Proactive with fans helps dispel negative brand attention and accentuate what’s positive. It is essential to be open with and useful to social communities and to adhere to both implicit and explicit ‘social rules’ rather than just dropping links to what you’re promoting.

 

Digital Assets: ‘If it can be searched on, it can be optimized’. The video, audio, podcasts, images, and many other digital assets hosted on most company websites represent many opportunities for pull based PR. Optimizing digital assets with relevant keywords and either promoting or submitting to vertical search engines like YouTube and Flickr can provide additional exposure to media that conduct online research as well as end customers. Optimizing more than standard text content for PR creates additional entry points to news content and can improve search based discovery.

 

Blogging:

When done right, a blog can be an incredible PR asset. Blog is an opportunity for an individual like me or a brand to create and publish its own content to a relevant online audience of content creators. Well-optimized and linked blog posts can rank well in the search engines making them easy to find for journalists and bloggers researching stories. Blogger relations is often more successful when the company being pitched has its own blog to point to.

 

Search and Social Media Monitoring:

With so many content creators online, the chance for both negative and positive brand mentions increases dramatically. Yet many tools exist to help the online PR professionals effectively monitor brand reputation. Companies can set up free alerts using tools like Google Alerts, Social Mention or Twitter to watch for mentions of their brand name, competitors’ names, industry news, and important key names. Social media monitoring data can be used to mine new ideas, keep tabs on competitors, identify brand ambassadors and address any negative press quickly and directly. Monitoring search engine rankings of news content can provide important feedback for news optimization efforts and provide insight into search traffic effectiveness.

 

A well-stocked Online PR toolbox should at the very least contain these five tools and the skill sets to get the most value from them. Whether it’s to identify and build relationships with influential bloggers or making it easy for the journalists to find you, your company/client when researching stories, standard PR tactics can no longer be relied upon. Creating and promoting content on the social web in addition to leveraging keyword optimization can provide PR professionals substantial advantages over their legacy minded peers who continue to rely on press releases, email and phones as their sole tools for gaining media coverage.

 

Benefits of Online PR:

•         Establish yourself as an expert in your field

•         Build brand awareness

•         Build your reputation

•         Counteract any negativity about your business

•         Generate publicity for your business,

•         Increase traffic to your Website

•         Grow your business

 

Online PR is an exciting area of work, because the Web is constantly changing and evolving, with new opportunities and channels opening up all the time. Traditional PR is still valid, but anyone who ignores or underestimates the value of the new media landscape does so at their own expense.

 

Thank you for reading the blog.