What is digital public relations (DPR)? Pros And Cons
Online PR (Digital PR) is a professional tactic used by brands to increase their online presence.
By establishing relationships with key content authors and online journalists to achieve press success or high-quality citations this goal can be achieved.
Digital public relations, when appropriately implemented, can enhance the access and visibility of a brand.
and in turn, will have positive impacts on the performance trend of SEO and the increased referral traffic to the website.
In general, digital PR increases the trust and credibility, conversion rates, and existential value of a business. Thus, join us here to become more familiar with this concept due to the significance of this issue.
- Introduction of digital marketing
- The importance of digital public relations
- Digital and traditional public relations
- Advantages of online public relations
- Disadvantages of online public relations
The emergence of social networks and various types of sites has enabled you to have a close relationship, and thereby, better interaction with your audience and customers and implement digital public relations programs and campaigns.
With the help of online public relations, you can easily manage crises with your timely announcements, use popular media to expand your relationships with customers or brand-making, and respond to the problems and opinions of the audience through social networks.
It is worth noting that digital marketing is exactly the turning point for online public relations activities. To this end, we will first provide a brief definition of digital marketing, followed by explaining the importance and necessity of digital public relations.
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Digital marketing refers to the interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and communicate viewers, turn them into customers, and finally retain them. The customer can also inquire about their needs in this method or convey their suggestions about commercial products and services.
Creating better and more interaction with the audience
Since different media and tools allow us to quickly transfer other digital message formats, creating a connection between the audience and customers seems to be one of the advantages of digital public relations in establishing better and more effective interaction with the audience. Therefore, you can easily count on publishing your ads through individuals or companies that work in cyberspace, and of course, in your field of work by using digital public relations.
Marketing, customer relationship, and better management
After applying the available tactics in digital public relations, your activities in advertising and marketing will increase, and eventually, you will have a continuous relationship with your customers. You can efficiently deal with problems and crises ahead with the help of online public relations and manage them with more focus since it is the only way to avoid any harm to your brand credibility.
Strong branding
Strong branding and increasing website traffic using backlinks, and sharing your content on various media seem to be essential advantages of online public relations.
Digital public relations believe that there are different spectra of audiences with different tastes and desires. The DPR is supposed to know all of them, learn their language, and uses the capabilities of new technologies such as email, website, social media, etc., to realize this goal.
Online public relations must be available to the audience on a full-time basis to answer their questions ASAP and don’t let the audience get frustrated from receiving the answer.
What is the difference between digital and traditional public relations?
Traditional public relations generally refer to those activities that try to get their target customers through traditional publications by communicating with journalists via conventional means of communication such as phone contact or their invitation to the dinner table.
Traditional public relations primarily emphasize paper publications, television, or radio broadcasting. But as you know, the print media market is not as flourishing as it used to be. Almost all businesses appear online on stage nowadays, and hence, online media is rapidly occupying print publishing and even television advertising.
With the growth of online marketing, the focus of most businesses has shifted from traditional public relations to digital public relations. In other words, digital public relations seem to be an evolved form of formal public relations.
Digital PR is focused on online publishing and brand awareness instead of using print publishing. This type of activity includes publishing articles and news online, collaborating with bloggers and influencers to showcase the features of products and getting feedback, writing content, and affiliate marketing for practical Introduction and branding through the online visits of the target audience.
It is safe to say that none of the SEO campaigns of a website will succeed without digital PR, and none can manage to get the website ranking to the top of the first page of Google.
Digital public relation is indeed a part of the main activities of the site’s external SEO, without which commercial achievements are beyond reach.
Public relations have changed dramatically over the past fifteen years so that online marketing, i.e., digital marketing, is an essential part of the development of different businesses. The use of online media in communications is also growing.
Considering what we mentioned earlier, there is no doubt that digital public relations should be considered as a major part of an online marketing strategy, while traditional public relations is not in the game any longer.
Like other elements of the marketing plan, online public relations have its specific advantages and disadvantages, which we will discuss in the next section.
The advantages of online public relations
The benefits of online PR are as follows:
o High credibility
Since online public relations activities are not recognized by the public as an advertising activity, and people do not pay for them directly or indirectly thus, they seem to have a high reputation and credibility.
Low cost
The cost of online PR is very low in both absolute and relative terms, especially when the possible consequences are taken into account as well. Meanwhile, a company can hire different advertising agencies and spend high costs on them.
- Without clutter and being ignored
Therefore, its messages are not exposed to clutter and invalidity as much as advertisements.
For example, introducing a new product in digital public relations is considered a new news item and will most likely be noticed by the audience. - having the potential to reach the specific audience
Since some products are merely requested by small segments of the market, then using traditional advertising techniques is not the solution in their case.
Also, when a company does not have the financial capacity to contribute to high advertising costs, the best way to connect with these specific groups of contacts is through online public relations. - Creating a positive and effective mental image of the brand
Digital PR is efficient.
as it contributes to build and develop a positive and effective mental image in the audience of a particular business, and hence, provides them with the grounds for branding.
What are the disadvantages of online public relations?
A major disadvantage of digital public relations is perhaps its low potential for communication processes. It is true that digital public relations news messages can easily pass through the clutter of commercials.
However, the news recipient may not communicate effectively with the source of the news, and thereby, many efforts by companies may be left in vain.
Also, digital public relations activities may take place incompletely due to mismanagement and failure in coordinating with the marketing department.
Since developing a good and competent plan with the right strategic management is the main key essential to establish effective digital public relations, measuring and analyzing the results of these activities at specific intervals seems to be necessary to determine the effectiveness of online public relations efforts.
If you hire an online public relations agency in your complex, your business can draw the attention of more media because online public relations agencies are well aware of what to do when and for what purpose.
Meanwhile, they are able to take action in the field of digital news production and maintain your business position in the online world.
They have come a long way in reaching the big news sources in the digital world over and over again and have got good skills in using effective techniques in this area.
Online public relations agencies generally have some common goals:
They never pay for news advertising under any circumstances, and they do not do reporting; also, they do not set up special advertising stations to sell more products from your company.
what is the main task of an online public relations agency?
To find the answer to this question and get more acquainted with the services and type of activities of Digital Public Relations Agencies, get in touch with our experts.