Over the past decade, we’ve seen more agencies and internal teams use “digital PR” without a digital marketing strategy, focusing on driving links that impact organic search performance.
Essentially, the SEO industry started borrowing techniques that the PR industry had been using for decades and applying them to the digital world.
This includes the following:
- Build relationships with reporters.
- Creating Value in the “Black Book” Contacts working with different clients.
- Integrate stories and hooks into the content.
- Use press releases Get the attention of journalists (not just for spamming links!)
- Using survey data Drive content and stories.
This, coupled with the rise of content marketing as a link building tactic, has led to today’s digital PR industry.
For a while, most digital PR campaigns were achieved by creating large-scale “hero” campaigns that could take weeks or even months to integrate and launch.
While these are still very much active, a new strategy has also emerged in the digital PR space over the past 18 months – passive.
Today, I want to talk about reactive digital PR and outline what it is, how to know if you can use it, and how to get the most out of it if you try it.
What is Reactive Digital PR?
Reactive digital PR is when you spot an opportunity to get coverage and links for your business and react quickly to that opportunity to seize it.
It relies on other people (usually journalists or news outlets) to publish stories appropriate to the business you are working with.
Then you react to that story. By its nature, it can be difficult to plan how to seize the opportunity.
In contrast to proactive digital PR, planned campaigns are designed to push the message to your target audience They may not have heard of it.
Is reactive digital PR right for everyone?
of course not.
The success of using passive digital PR depends on several factors.
If these factors are an issue for your business, you may find that this is not a technique that provides you with a good return on investment.
Here are some examples of what you need to consider when considering trying reactive digital PR.
Topic relevance
Certain industries are naturally talked about in the news more often than others. Some have clear, repeating news cycles that allow you to predict when reactive digital PR opportunities will come to you.
For example, the following will almost certainly recur regularly in the news cycle:
- UK government budget announcement and its impact.
- Christmas Gift Guide As well as the most popular toys every year.
- housing market and price rises/falls.
There’s more, but hopefully you understand that certain topics are constantly being discussed in the media.
If you work in an industry where, frankly, not much has changed or happened during the news cycle, reactive digital PR can be a challenge.
It’s not impossible, but you may want to lower your expectations and avoid spending too much time or resources.
On the other hand, if you work in an industry where the topic is often discussed, you will naturally have more opportunities to take advantage of reactive digital PR, which means you may decide to invest more.
speed
As the name and process suggest, speed is critical to reactive digital PR.
You usually need to react to an opportunity within a few hours or at most a few days.
Even if you are fast, you may be overwhelmed by other people trying to react quickly. If you can’t react quickly in the first place, there’s very little chance this technology will work for you.
Ideally, you should have good trust and autonomy from the business and key stakeholders for reactive digital PR to work well.
When crafting content or commentary for a story, try to avoid taking too long for committee approvals or decisions.
Even if you don’t have full autonomy, reactive digital PR can still work if you have a stakeholder on your side who understands the need to move quickly and can approve anything you need in a timely manner.
realistic expectations
We’ll talk about this later, but all in all, reactive digital PR is a short and sharp project that produces a good level of links but is unlikely to lead to an hero battle Go viral.
Sure, this can happen, but in most cases you’ll end up with dozens of links (instead of hundreds) thanks to reactive digital PR.
Therefore, your stakeholders (and you!) must have the right expectations when adopting this strategy and understand that this is different from other forms of digital PR and link building.
It’s a bit like certain types of technical SEO fixes that will affect organic search results to varying degrees.
You need a team of stakeholders who understand this and control expectations.
Overall, if you have doubts about any of these areas, reactive digital PR may not be right for your business, or it may be worth trying before committing too many resources.
Opportunities you may find
Reactive digital PR may give you the opportunity to do several things that can lead to reach and links.
These aren’t mutually exclusive with the opportunities that larger heroic events might bring, but they’re more likely to happen without the need for massive content.
Comments on top news stories
Sometimes journalists seek some extra credibility from industry experts to add to existing stories they are writing.
When this happens, they may use this type of label or use services such as Harrow or response source.
Monitoring these areas can help you spot opportunities for internal experts to provide reviews, complete with brand mentions, or even better, links.
It could also be an opportunity to gain credibility in the subject area and build relationships with journalists who may come directly to you in the future for more comment.
Content of a specific news item
At times, you will use reactive digital PR to craft the content you provide to journalists to help support a story they may be planning to publish on a news item.
The main difference compared to a heroic campaign is that you create content very, very quickly and make it specific to a news item or topic that has been discussed (or will be discussed).
The idea is that you’ve spotted a trend that’s likely to be covered in the days or weeks ahead, and you’re producing content that journalists can use to add more value to what they plan to write about.
Your content should be simple, easy to produce, and add a unique message to a developing news story.
This is usually a piece of data or a simple visualization.
Supplements to existing stories
In fact, it is fairly common for journalists to update their news stories after they have been reported.
This is especially common for news that gathers more information and can add to existing stories.
You’ll have the opportunity to add value to existing stories you’ve seen journalists write and publish.
Now, this can be hard, and you should only do it if the content or comments you provide really add value to an existing story.
If not, you are likely to receive a negative response from reporters.
What Reactive Digital PR May Lead to
As mentioned above, set expectations with this strategy. It doesn’t always yield the outcome of a larger, planned heroic campaign.
But as with most things, it’s hard to predict.
Remember that the time and resources you invest should be proportional to the expected results.
If a reactive digital PR task takes you 15 minutes and you only get one link, it’s actually a good return for your time.
You should also keep in mind that you may get A mix of regular and nofollow links And mention the brand through such activities.
You can certainly do your best to convert brand mentions into links, but that’s not always possible.
Again, this is not a huge issue as it is perfectly normal and natural to get mixed results, but set expectations with stakeholders before you start that may be the case.
How to Prepare for Reactive Digital PR
While reactive digital PR can be hard to plan, there are a few ways you can stack your deck so that when the time comes, you have the best opportunity to take advantage.
expert with opinion
Take the time to determine who to serve in your business Expert comments on core topics you want to cover.
For smaller businesses, this might just be one person. Larger businesses may have different specialists for different fields.
Whichever it is, find out who these people are and tell them what you want to do.
From here, assuming they are on board, if a review is required, you can arrange to speak to them directly and communicate the need for a quick review as much as possible.
It’s also worth noting that you need their opinion!
This may sound a little odd, but ideally they should have fairly clear or strong points in order to stand out among journalists writing about the subject.
You don’t need extreme opinions, but you should probably know which side of the fence they’re sitting on most of the time.
planned date
Certain days of the year have topics written more frequently than usual.
There are obvious themes such as Christmas and Halloween, but there are many others.
For example, you know what? Dirty Disk Day is it a thing?
or that folk dance day like chicken Happens every year?
While some are obviously not serious and just kind of amusing, look for days of the year that are relevant to your topic that might elicit news and stories from reporters.
If you can do that and prepare some content that is relevant to a day of the year, you can market it to reporters ahead of time, and maybe get covered by their story.
Asset Signed Off
Speed is important for reactive digital PR.
To help combat the slowdown in content production and signoffs, prepare your assets before you actually need them.
When the time comes, a key topic is in the news, and you can get your content ready and pitch it fast – rather than waiting for it to be signed off and slowing you down.
One way is to spend 30 to 45 minutes on the phone with one of your experts and interview them about the subject.
This can be a goldmine of insights and commentary for reactive digital PR.
Reactive digital PR can be a great way to generate more links and reach for a brand, but it’s not for everyone.
If you do continue to do so, plan as much ahead as possible and be prepared to act quickly when opportunities arise.
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Featured Image: wellphoto/Shutterstock
