In the past and often now, you may have noticed when you read digital marketing company blogs about PR, they will skew the article towards the advantages of digital marketing and now digital PR.
It seems all digital marketing companies are trying to get into the public relations arena now, claiming they practice ‘digital PR’ and influencing their audience to believe traditional PR professionals don’t practice what they do. They skew their information to make the audience believe they have something PR companies don’t.
Here is an example of a typical post on a digital marketing companies website:
“ And through social media, digital PR can connect with customers and influencers, sparking conversations and building excitement around a brand. Effective social media campaigns have the power to subtly persuade and influence an audience through well-crafted posts, a key area to consider when examining the benefits of traditional PR versus digital PR”.
See what I mean? Additionally, they will often put down Traditional PR as if it is in the dark ages because it is not ‘measurable’. Which it now is.
Don’t get me wrong I love digital marketing as nothing makes me crazier than to work hard and get a client fantastic publicity, in a major media outlet, only to have them do nothing with it.
That article should be posted on their website and social and every place else and ‘worked to death’ with backlinks, comments, shares, likes, etc. –
The thing here is we, as PR pros, can do what digital marketers do, for our clients, if they do not have a digital marketing person or we can hire one to do it.
But are digital marketing/PR people getting the valuable third party endorsements, from a respected journalist that ‘traditional PR pros do?
Most are not.
The problem with digital marketing agencies that put down ‘traditional PR’ . is that they are trying to say PR pros don’t do what they do, which is wrong. Many and more PR pros do what they do – especially in the social arena -or they hire someone to do it.
Very often good PR does not need to be measured – the results speak for themself. But we will get it out in the digital world as much as a digital marketing person will – and we have good reason too – because we worked hard to get that respected publicity in real media outlets, not fake outlets or obscure online outlets that don’t get noticed by Google.
Since the digital arena has become so crowded and companies are growing tired of paying for ‘clicks’ rather than clients, real publicity is fast becoming the best way to catapult your brand, credibility, and growth.
As always, the major asset traditional PR has that digital marketing can’t come near is that valuable third party endorsement by a respected journalist. And as the digital space becomes more crowded with fake news – real news outlets ie: ‘traditional’, are getting more respect than ever from Google.
A real press piece by a respected media outlet will go much farther up on google rankings than the obscure online only and fake news digital outlets.
Which is why digital marketers are saying they do PR. Don’t be fooled – it is not the same.
You could say digital PR is actually a ‘tool’ to be used after you get real PR.
Nothing gives your brand more credibility than Real PR.
Additionally Real PR:
Gets you in front of new audiences
Creates your brand.
Creates you as an expert in your field
Raises your reputation
And so much more
