In 2019, Less than 1 in 10 marketers focused on digital PR.
Fast forward to 2022, you live in a world that is increasingly digital. So, you do not want to be a deficit, in terms of digital public relations skills.
After all, every public you project a positive brand image to could either be a digital immigrant (people who did not grow up in the digital age) or a digital native (people who grew up with technology all around them). Fundamentally, digital technologies encompass most aspects of everyone’s lives.
This means that how you once operated in a traditional public relations setting can be hard to translate value with, in an era of digital mindset.
Hence, you need to be agile and adaptive to this ever-changing media landscape to make sure the brand’s messages are heard. You are now thrown into a world of domain authority, keywords, backlinks, PPC, SEO (on and off-page), Google ranking, alt texts, and most importantly, link building to increase your brand online presence.
This is of top priority. In this case, you need these 4 digital public relations skills to grow your brand visibility amongst this contemporary audiences;
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Ultimately, every client wants an improved website’s position on search results pages. To get this, you need a basic understanding of the three pillars of SEO
– On-Page Optimization: This is the use of relevant keywords to have optimized and engaging content. You can target the relevant keywords for your content with the use of content management systems that include WordPress, Wix, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, and Expression Engine.
– Off-Page optimization: Link building is a skill you need to possess to optimize your off-page presence. In a study conducted by Moz on Search Engine Ranking Factors, their key finding was that off-site SEO-related factors likely carry more than 50% of the ranking factor weight.
However, this still boils down to having relevant content to gain backlinks – high-authority websites reference your blog posts.
– Technical Optimization: it’s not cheesy to say you need at least basic knowledge of the technical aspects of a website in order to increase the ranking of your pages in the search engines.
Such digital public relations skill as this helps you understand your client’s website better, leading to higher rankings in organic search results.
VIDEO AND IMAGE CREATION
You have a limited time to grab the attention of your audience to your brand. That is why content as video in your PR strategy will communicate a message in a different way and increase engagement with your audience
On the other hand, great photos accompanying press releases can help secure media coverage.
These content types; video and image can pretty much promote your public relations goals in terms of audience engagement, approved media pitches, and brand value.
It makes sense that a PR professional should work towards gaining these skills. Key messaging can be distributed through video and graphic design, helping build up the brand.
INFLUENCER RELATIONSHIP
Influencers have built relationships, trust, and credibility with their fans. Invariably, these fans are your brand’s target audience. To expand your reach and positioning to these fans, you need to be skillful in developing meaningful relationships with these influencers.
How do you develop this relationship? First thing first, identify and get the information of the influencer within your brand niche.
Moving forward, it’s not a contract of ‘Please share my post’ and it’s done. Rather, you must pitch to your brand influencers valuable proposals. It’s a two-way thing, you earn brand visibility and promotion from their recommendations, on the digital space and they get special offers in return.
DIGITAL DASHBOARD
Utilizing the potential of a digital dashboard for public relations offers you insight into the level of your brand identity.
A digital dashboard is an electronic tracking that displays an interactive, visual representation of data from a host of sources to purport you with historical trends, actionable insights, and real-time information.
Significantly, accessibility to clear-cut data analytics and KPIs aimed at growth, evolution, and professional development enhance your public relations deliverables to get you ahead of your brand competitors.
