10 Essential Digital PR Tips for Small Businesses

With over 33.3 million small businesses across the country and 61.6 million people employed, it’s evident that the rise of these establishments has yielded amazing economic benefits for the country. However, while this presented employment opportunities for citizens, business owners frequently encountered the challenge of reaching a broader audience amidst competition with fellow small businesses and established brands within their industry.

Luckily, Digital Public Relations (Digital PR) presents a fighting chance for these small businesses to leverage a wide array of online platforms and strategies to enhance their overall presence in the market. In this blog, we will be delving into what Digital PR is and provide some tips on how to stay ahead, regardless of the industry.

What is Digital PR?

Much like every industry, innovation is a must to survive in the digital age of business. The same goes for Digital PR, a result of an evolution of traditional public relations practices. Emphasizing the digital aspect, this strategy utilizes online strategies to effectively communicate with consumers, increase online presence, and establish a positive brand, all executed in a measurable and targeted way.

Unlike traditional PR, which mainly involves creating media kits, holding press conferences, and organizing events, digital PR leverages blogs, social media, and search engines to achieve its objectives.

Benefits of Digital PR:

Enhanced Online Visibility

If you’re an entrepreneur, especially if you are running a small business, PR can be a viable tool in getting your name out there. Through digital PR’s consistent and strategic techniques, you can appear more frequently in search engines, resulting in more eyes seeing your website and social media pages.

Established Brand Reputation

Through the publication of high-quality articles on trusted authority sites, digital PR can do wonders in establishing your brand as a reputable source of information, resulting in increased trust overall. This is commonly done through guest blogging or other means, such as press release distribution.

Supports Lead Nurturing

Aside from supporting efforts in raising brand awareness and increasing your reputation, digital PR can also aid in improving lead nurturing efforts, including diversifying content, email marketing, and exploring social media engagement techniques, resulting in improved conversion rates.

SEO Optimization

During your efforts to get content published on an authoritative site, digital PR emphasizes the need to link back to your website since, from an SEO perspective, this can help improve your rankings in search engines.

Established Deeper Connections

Since part of digital PR’s strategies is gaining a deeper understanding of consumer behavior, part of its efforts can help you craft engaging and interactive campaigns that can foster a deeper connection with your target audience. 

10 Digital PR Tips Every Small Business Owner Should Know

Prioritize Data-Driven Research

Even for a small business, PR strategies built around data-driven information are a good strategy since this practice can consistently be used even if your operation reaches a larger scale. Data analysis is a foolproof way to gain a deeper understanding and pulse on which approach will work for your brand and consumers.

Whenever exploring the possibilities of launching any digital PR campaign, analyze your previous performances and consult other data through Google Analytics, social media insights, and keyword research. This will give you a solid point of reference when building your campaign, making it more relevant and engaging for your consumers.

Relatable and Creative Campaigns

With a myriad of content available online and each one trying to get the most eyes possible, the importance of being relatable and ensuring it will resonate with your consumers are your best assets. Regardless of the PR campaign’s objective, the concept should not only revolve around your brand’s identity but also speak to your audience on a personal level.

Taking this route touches on the importance of authentic marketing, which focuses on building benefits for your brand, such as brand awareness and driving revenue, while also making an impact on consumers. 

Utilize Newsjacking

By definition, Newsjacking is the process of capitalizing on trending news or topics and using it to gain more visibility for your brand. Since this strategy is time-sensitive, its effectiveness will rely on how fast you can spot topics and turn them into something that would benefit your brand.

However, it’s important to note that not every trending news or topic can be used for newsjacking. It’s crucial to choose topics that align with your brand’s values and stray away from sensitive subjects that could draw the wrong type of attention.

Explore Guest Blogs

Guest blogging is one of the most effective strategies when it comes to establishing your brand’s credibility among both consumers and fellow entrepreneurs within the same industry. This involves visiting various authoritative sites and looking for ones that align with your brand’s niche. 

Aside from having a platform to share your expertise with a wider audience, guest blogging is also a proven SEO tactic, which helps improve performance through building relationships, gaining exposure, and link-building efforts.

Influencer Collaboration

Whenever you’re scrolling through social media, chances are you come across an influencer promoting a product or service from a certain product. Most of the time, this includes a special, limited-time code that consumers can use to get discounts or other benefits. This is just one of the strategies that come with influencer collaborations. 

Partnering with influencers is not only a cost-effective approach but can also amplify your brand’s message and reach a wider audience. Collaborations can range from sponsored content to agreements, such as virtual live events. However, it’s important to look for influencers with followers who match your target market and whose values match your brand’s morals.

Press Release Distribution

Probably considered one of the main pillars of public relations, press releases are always in the lineup of foolproof strategies that can go wonders in expanding reach to new audiences, building brand awareness, saving up on advertising costs, and solidifying your credibility in your industry.

Especially for a small business, PR with press releases is one of the main driving points that can greatly benefit your venture. Keep in mind that a press release should be newsworthy, concise, and can answer the 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When, Why). With journalists skimming through hundreds of pitches a day, you will have higher chances of getting your press release noticed and published with a compelling hook.

When choosing a press release distribution service, consider factors such as the cost, turnaround time to get your writeup published, and whether they offer their own writing services for instances when you require one. 

• EIN Press Wire is a good example of a cost-effective distribution platform for your press release. With packaged pricing starting at $99.95, you can get your write-up published on the same day. However, they don’t offer their own writing services. 

• Another example is Cision PRWeb, which is slightly more expensive, starting at $110 with its own writing services and a 48-hour turnaround time to get published.

Foster Relationships with Journalists

In the world of public relations, knowing and building relationships with the right people is one of the greatest assets you can have to further your influence within your industry. Arguably, the most important factor within the network is journalists. They are responsible for publishing your writeups and can give you the coverage you need to reach the intended audience.

There are several ways you can have a good working relationship with journalists. Engage with them on social media, invite them to campaign events, and even offer press kits to show your gratitude for your partnership with them.

Don’t Sleep on User-Generated Content

Building credibility and establishing authenticity within your industry doesn’t solely rely on your brand’s efforts. Sometimes, your consumers can help you outside of a financial context through User-Generated Content (UGC). This type of content comes in the form of reviews, testimonials, and social media posts that can be used as material for your digital PR efforts.

Whether you ask for it directly or inspire your consumers to take action, taking advantage of User-Generated Content is a solid PR strategy to build authenticity and brand loyalty while saving on promotional costs.  

Incentivize with Referral Programs

What makes digital PR effective is its ability to leverage the power of Word-of-mouth marketing. With this strategy, you are able to add another layer to your promotional efforts through your consumers’ interest in your brand. Launching a referral program that rewards your consumers for bringing new business to you is a good way of showing your gratitude for the loyalty they have shown.

This approach not only encourages your consumers to spread the word about your brand but also builds loyalty and attracts new customers through trusted recommendations who are eager to experience your quality of service.

Join and Engage with Online Communities

Interacting with both consumers and fellow industry experts is a vital part of furthering your efforts to establish brand credibility. These communities come in various forms, such as forums, social media groups, or expert organization sites like Forbes Business Council, which all can be good platforms to share expert insights, engage in discussions, and build valuable networks.

By contributing to these communities, you can build your brand’s reputation and establish yourself as a thought leader, leading to more consumers seeing the potential in conducting business with you and your operations.

What Makes an Effective Digital PR Campaign?

Clearly Defining Your PR Objectives

Before launching any digital PR campaign, your success will begin with a solid understanding of what you want to achieve. Ask yourself if it’s a campaign for brand awareness. More website traffic? Better SEO rankings or a campaign heavy on improving your brand's overall reputation? Getting a straight answer to this will allow you to build a plan with a clear path on which deliverables you need to complete to ensure that it’s a success.

Depending on your chosen objective, you will need to tailor a specific strategy to maximize its effectiveness. Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals can go a long way in ensuring you stay on track with the direction throughout the campaign’s duration.

Gaining a Better Understanding of Your Audience

Once you’ve established a clear objective on how the campaign is going to be executed, it’s time to turn matters to the consumers. Knowing the ins and outs of your target market is crucial since most of the key metrics that will determine the effectiveness of your digital PR campaign will rely on how the consumers will react.

Analyzing the Competition

Conducting competitor analysis and analyzing previous campaigns is a great way of gauging the current PR landscape and gaining insights on how you can uniquely execute your own campaign. Much like other marketing strategies, keeping an eye on your competitors can help you integrate approaches that work and stray from the ones that don’t. It can also help you determine gaps in your competitors’ campaigns, allowing you to capitalize on these missed opportunities.

Crafting High-Quality Content

Mainly considered as the primary foundation of your digital PR campaign is, of course, your content. Prioritize high-quality, engaging, and informative content, as this will add to the overall value to your audience and can maximize the attention or shares your campaign will acquire throughout.

Regardless of its blog posts, press releases, articles, or even multimedia content, the content should be compelling and enticing enough to pique people’s curiosity and drive potential business to your operations.

Exploring the Most Effective Distribution Strategy

Depending on your industry and the data you’ve gathered regarding your consumers’ behavior, the execution of your digital PR campaign should revolve around which distribution will get the most eyes on your brand and help your efforts from an SEO perspective. Take the time to explore the different distribution services before giving the green light since this step can make all the difference in your campaign's overall impact and success.

Conclusion

Following countless innovations in marketing, the art of public relations still remains one of the most impactful and cost-effective strategies that business owners can implement into their operations. Regardless of whether it’s an established company or a small business, PR has proven that its strategies are still useful tools for staying competitive in the current business landscape.

At Virtudesk, we are fully committed to helping businesses get one step closer to their goal of success. Our virtual assistants undergo rigorous training to ensure every entrepreneur seeking our services gets the best support and experience, including their efforts in raising their visibility within the digital space through innovative PR campaigns. 

Contact us now to schedule a discovery call and experience the unparalleled support that only Virtudesk can provide.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• What is Digital PR?

Digital PR is the online arm of traditional public relations that mainly focuses on increasing a brand’s presence in the digital space through building relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers. The effectiveness of digital PR involves creating compelling and “share-worthy” stories to have better chances of reaching more users.

• How does Digital PR differ from traditional PR?

Unlike traditional PR, which focuses on offline activities, Digital PR is more focused on online activities and engagement through digital channels in order to reach a wider audience more effectively and efficiently.

• How can my business benefit from Newsjacking?

Every time certain news starts trending, all eyes would be on that topic. By leveraging this news and injecting your ideas into the story, you will more likely draw attention to your business, demonstrating industry leadership and furthering your brand’s influence.

• How does Influencer Marketing increase brand presence?

Influencer marketing is a good strategy that leverages online personalities and their influence on their community. Partnering with these influencers can help you gain more consumers since this amplifies your brand’s message and extends your reach.

• How can User-Generated Content help my Digital PR strategy?

User-generated content (UGC) helps enhance authenticity, foster an interactive community, and increase engagement. Encouraging your consumers to share their experiences with your brand not only provides social proof but also provides an additional layer of promotional content for your digital PR strategy.

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