Best digital PR strategies and tools for 2022

Did you know that just one email can get your content top-tier coverage, hundreds of backlinks, and thousands of social shares? This is what is known as PR benefits. If you think digital PR is just another jargon and haven't given it a try, you're missing out big time. Although you may feel like SEO, digital marketing and social media all seem to work in the same way, digital PR is one of the most effective techniques to boost your business. It goes beyond the usual press release by mixing a brand's message with a compelling narrative to get top-tier publishers to cover it online.

What do you mean by digital public relations?

The strategic use of Internet-based strategies, tools, and platforms to establish a better online presence and exposure is referred to as digital PR.

The fact is that most of us nowadays find or come into touch with brands through the internet. Google searches, social media platforms, podcasts, forums, blogs, and review sites are just a few of the possible touchpoints. As a result, public relations professionals can no longer rely only on traditional PR strategies to successfully communicate their thoughts. They need to focus their efforts on ensuring that a brand is visible and well-represented on the digital platforms that its target audience frequents.

PR professionals use four pillars of digital public relations to achieve the desired exposure and image:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Social media

Traditional PR vs Digital PR

Traditional PR refers to publicists who badgered journalists on the phone and chatted them up over dinner to get their clients into newspapers and print media. PR typically concentrated on print media, television, and radio. However, print media is no longer what it once was, and internet media is fast displacing traditional print periodicals and even television. With the rise of internet marketing, the smartest of these public relations professionals have moved their attention to Digital PR.

Digital public relations is a more advanced kind of public relations. Instead of focusing on print newspapers, digital PR focuses on growing brand exposure through online outlets. It contains the following items:

• Publications and articles
• Collaboration on product features and reviews with bloggers and influencers
• Affiliate marketing
• Establish relationships with journalists and content writers to gain press coverage
• Becoming more visible on social media
• Online reviews help to build brand credibility

When done correctly, these digital PR methods have a favourable influence on a website's Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To boost a website's exposure in the search results, digital PR requires an awareness of Google's standards and ranking signals. As a result, many digital PR initiatives are managed by SEOs and content marketers with experience in the field.

Best PR strategies in 2022

A digital plan details how a brand will increase its SEO ranks. This plan often contains suggestions for raising brand mentions and gaining external links. An SEO audit, a backlink analysis, and work assignment may also be included in a strategy. To create a good digital PR plan, you'll need to take six steps

• Brief the subject matter experts you want to use for expert comments and bylines on your approach. Ascertain that they comprehend the importance of digital public relations from both an institutional and personal standpoint.
• Conduct one-on-one interviews with the experts you've chosen to learn more about their areas of expertise. This can help you figure out which websites, subjects, and articles to look into in order to generate media possibilities for them.
• Begin pitching the media with your expert. When doing this, a good rule of thumb is to keep an eye out for prospective tales with which they may talk and write.
• Review and maintain a connection with the reporter and faculty – arrange expert-reporter phone interviews. Experts' bylines are ghostwritten on their behalf.
• Keep note of the websites and stories that mention your specialists. This allows you to get an understanding of what kind of information the media responds to the most. This is known as Media Tracking. Then, you can use the information you collected to email information on each placement to faculty members and stakeholders so that they may share it with their own audiences.
• Finally, make sure you examine each piece of content's stats. Unique monthly views, Domain Rating, social shares, and PR value are all useful indicators to measure.

Once you have your digital public relations strategies in place, there are thousands of PR tools in the marketing technology space. We've picked out some of the best PR tools that are available to assist you with a campaign.

Best PR tools for digital PR

• Google Analytics is a tool that allows you to track your online Increases in traffic, as well as conversions for leads and revenues, are tracked.
• Google Search Console is a tool that allows you to manage your search results Increases in clicks, impressions, and brand mentions are tracked.
• Ahrefs is useful when it comes to quantifying the worth of a digital PR win. You may use the Domain Rating to assess a site's quality, find the most popular material for any topic, quickly analyze your site's backlinks profile, and assist you in finding relevant keyword ideas for byline articles or op-eds.
• Majestic is an SEO tool to assess the external website's credibility
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out) connects journalists with potential sources for forthcoming articles. This thriving community gives everyday opportunities for sources to earn meaningful media attention.
• Tineye is a reverse image search engine that locates infographics and photos on the internet.
• Cision gives communicators the tools they need to discover influencers, write and disseminate relevant stories, and track the results.

Digital PR benefits

Businesses gain from digital PR in a variety of ways, both direct and indirect.

• Improve SEO and rankings – Getting links to your website and publishing on high-authority websites can help you climb the ranks for your chosen keywords. The higher you rank on Google, the more visitors your website will receive.
• Increase website traffic - The more people who read about your company and share it on social media, the more people will come to your website. It’s almost like starting your own wildfire.
• Establish brand trust – When your consumers put your company's name into a search engine, a digital PR team ensures that they only get positive results. Your brand image will be nurtured by creating interesting content and obtaining good, unbiased evaluations.
• Create leads - A successful digital PR plan should expose your products to a targeted and interested audience. The more people that read about your items and then visit your website, the more leads you'll get.
• Increase revenue - Any reputable digital PR firm understands that firms must make sales and get a return on their digital marketing expenditure. A digital PR strategy should produce leads, who will be funnelled via a conversion funnel and converted into paying consumers through great content on your website.

Most of us cannot live without our smartphones. In practically every aspect of life, including business and employment, digitization has had a significant influence. As a result, digital PR has grown so important that brands have already shifted their attention away from traditional PR. Grapes provide tailored and results-driven digital PR services to put our customers in front of target audiences.