Online Press Release (online public relations) is about using the Internet to connect with a website or business’ key audiences and the public, to raise awareness and increase exposure, build and maintain an image and brand trust to build and communicate to solve crises. Online PR works in much the same way as traditional public relations, only with a different set of promotional tools. Here are some of the benefits of the addition of online Press Release efforts to the public relations strategy of a company:
There are a variety of online promotional tools available to a site or a corporate public relations efforts, including:
Press Releases can be used in online promotions, much as they are used in offline PR. There is no substitute for manual targeting quality, relevant media and pursuing media relations, online press release distribution allows a website or company to distribute their news to news engines (like Google News and Yahoo News), where it can directly be seen by members of their target.
Blogs and forums or online communities are wonderful online promotional tools for building and maintaining a reputation as an expert or authority source. Rather than using these community atmosphere as a place to make a blatant sales pitch, the idea is to use a “soft sell” technique to provide quality content or response to others’ questions in a niche, building trust and respect, as often recent converts to the companies or visitors naturally.
Write and distribute expert articles on a niche topic to online article directories is another way to demonstrate competence and build confidence.
SEO is often incorrectly classified as “marketing” tool, but is in fact a narrow niche in online Press Releases. The whole point of SEO is again making soft sell approach to build exposure and awareness, especially through internships in the search engine rankings, which will eventually lead to a natural website traffic and or sales.
Email newsletters can be directed against any of a website’s most important audience or the audience, as a direct means of communication to maintain an image and keep the awareness of a brand strong.
While seminars and webinars are an effective online PR tool, podcasts and webinars, the same goal, and serve as another tool for building a reputation based on demonstrating expertise in a niche.