Our news feeds are FULL of news stories from national news sites, local news, or outlets related to our interests. 

Do you ever find yourself reading articles without intending to? Often, they’ll feature a business or a news story, but did you know that YOU can get featured in these outlets, and it's easier than you may think?

Digital PR is a GREAT way to get exposure to a broader audience in your area or niche. It’s doubtful that you will just appear in press releases; you need to be behind it to make it happen! 

So how can you make it happen? Let’s take a look at Digital PR and how you can use it to benefit your business. 

What is Digital PR?

Digital PR is a way for businesses to increase their online presence across various platforms and news outlets. Ultimately, digital PR is how companies get more exposure by working with journalists and influencers to gain mentions across social media and backlinks to their site. 

Online media is rapidly overtaking the traditional forms of PR (magazines & newspapers). 

Why is Digital PR important? 

Digital PR is an excellent way for businesses to get more exposure and get in front of their target audience when using a news outlet or influencer within their niche. The high-quality content backlinks from news outlets, bloggers, and local news sites can be beneficial for your search engine optimisation (SEO), as this is a ranking factor from Google. 

Digital PR can also get you mentions and shares across social media if you jump on something that is trending! 

If you are a local business, working with local bloggers, online magazines, local newspaper websites can be beneficial to get your business known in your local area and ultimately in front of your ideal local target audience. 

Not only will you increase your visibility and SEO, but you will also impact your brand awareness, which can help gain your potential customers' trust! 

What Businesses Can Use Digital PR?

ANY business, in ANY industry, in ANY niche. 

Honestly, there are PR opportunities for all types of businesses; whether you are a high street retailer, a personal trainer, or a creative business, there are opportunities available! 

Don’t think that you need to have an exciting product or story to get exposure; ALL businesses can benefit from a digital PR strategy and a creative angle. 

How Can You Get Started with Digital PR?

There are many ways to get started with digital PR; of course, there are PR agencies out there who can do all of this for you if your budget allows for PR. It can be a valuable investment, but if you are just starting or your marketing team has time and spend allocated to digital PR, there are a few things you can do. 

Let’s take a look at the key areas of digital PR. 

Newsjacking

Newsjacking is where you hop on to trending news pieces and topics. For example, over the last year, the Netflix show Bridgeton has been popular, and we’ve seen increasing articles and content based on the hit series. 

We can break trending news topics into two areas, macro, and micro trends. A macro trend is something that many people are aware of, for example, a royal wedding or working from home. 

You can also jump onto microtrends that you need to be super quick to respond to; this can be trending memes, videos, GIFs, or popular songs! For example, in the debacle between M&S and Aldi about Colin the Caterpillar and Cuthbert the Caterpillar, other brands were quick to jump on this, and it became an ‘If you know, you know’ style of sharing. Take a look at their tweet below.

At the same time, there was also the battle of the Super League, and brands jumped in to combine this with the Caterpillar scandal. To understand these memes, you had to be in the know. The idea here is that the audience felt included because they felt they were part of an ‘in-joke.’ 

To be successful in newsjacking, you need to be QUICK to react, and in the case of microtrends, you need to be INSTANT. I’d recommend having meme templates ready to be able to respond to micro trends fast! 

If you are going to ‘newsjack’ on socials, I’d recommend Twitter and Facebook for maximum virality, but always be sensitive and appropriate about the topics you jump onto.

Journalist requests

Keeping an eye on Twitter for requests from journalists is something you should be doing if you have an active PR strategy! 

I’d recommend keeping an eye on the hashtags:

#journorequests

#PRrequests

Using these hashtags, journalists will tell you what articles or comments they are looking for and how you can submit your comment or pitch. Usually, they’ll include an email address and the publication that they are working for. This is a GREAT way to get links with some of the more prominent outlets and magazines! 

See the examples below of opportunities that pop up on Twitter from journalists from The Huffington Post and the Sunday Times!

Press Releases

The most traditional form of PR that is still successful is press releases! 

You are the expert in your field, so why not write about it or work with someone that can write about it. Do you have an interesting take on your industry or a comment on a specific issue or trend? Write about it!

Send your press releases over to trade-specific publications to get exposure within your industry and in front of your ideal clients.

A few things to remember to include when writing press releases:

• Include a heading & subheading

• Full & short versions of your press release

• Images (with download links)

• Social links

• Any other material - audio, video, relevant links

Data outreach

This is where you collect data by conducting a poll or a survey and sharing your results. Data can be used to reach out to publications to share your findings from your survey or poll. In this case, the survey must be based on a topical or trending subject. For example, around World Earth Day, you could do a study about plastic use, and if your key finding were: 90% of people say that they no longer use plastic straws, this would be your headline and way to grab attention! 

You’ll need to collect the data yourself and put it on your website so the publications can link back to the source. 

If you don’t have the means to collect data, then why not use publicly available data. For example, if you are a local business could you look at the ratings of local Airbnb’s and pull together a list of ‘The Top 10 AirBnb’s in Surrey’. This can be done with anything publicly available, including TripAdvisor ratings, booking.com ratings, Google trends. Get creative and use data that is already out there! 

It’s time for you to get exposure online.

And that is my guide to Digital PR! If you’ve got this far, you’ll see that there are SO many opportunities out there for businesses to gain exposure across a wide range of outlets to increase reach and brand awareness.

You don’t need a big budget to be successful at PR; you need to be responsive, reactive, and get creative!  

I hope this Digital PR guide for businesses has been helpful for you and that you’ve taken away some key learnings! 

Mary-Anne.

 p.s if you would like to check out all the marketing tips that I’ve been sharing on TikTok, you can view ALL of my videos here.

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