A digital public relations ambassador is a person who represents and promotes a brand and its products or services through digital PR strategies such as acquiring high-quality backlinks and publishing content.
Traditionally, a qualified person would be hired as a digital PR ambassador, but in today’s digital world, it is also crucial for other business employees to be able to implement strategies that enhance the brand’s online presence.
Whether it’s a conversation at a family wedding or a birthday party with friends, we all talk about work. However, technology has now given everyone the power to significantly impact a brand’s reputation through word of mouth.
So how can all your employees become ambassadors in the field?
Digital PR is a strategy and promotional tactic used to increase brand awareness and social following, enhance a brand’s online identity and visibility, and drive traffic to a website.
Both digital and traditional PR have the same objective—increasing brand awareness. However, the strategies and channels used and the consumer interactions differ.
(Image Source: Mentionlytics)
Types of digital PR:
- PR link building for SEO: PR link building is all about ensuring that links from high domain authority websites lead back to your brand’s website: 65 percent of marketers claim organic link building is one of the trickiest SEO tactics.
- Social media PR: The public relations team can use social media to handle misunderstandings by posting apologies, explanations, solutions etc. Social media is also a great place to reach a wider audience through influencer marketing, as 70 percent of teenagers trust influencers more than celebrities.
- Press releases: Press releases are produced to share company news and are still the most trusted source of information for 54 percent of journalists in the UK. Digital press releases can include contact links, images and video to maximize web exposure.
Benefits of digital PR:
- Increases brand awareness: The more people that know about your brand through social media, link building or press releases, the more traffic your website receives and the more sales you make.
- Improves organic rankings: Link building between high-quality content helps Google to rank your website effectively.
- Increases website traffic: Brand awareness, a high search engine ranking, social media and backlinks can all increase organic and referral traffic.
- Enhances brand credibility: Being a trusted brand matters, as 95% of people read online reviews before they shop with a brand.
- Increases sales: Increased website traffic and a good brand reputation can positively affect your sales.
- Increases ROI: Every positive mention of your business stays online, so any digital PR you invest in will continue to pay off for years.
3 ways to transform your employees into digital PR ambassadors
#1 Teach them about SEO
Search engine optimisation practices improve the quantity and quality of your website through keywords and link building so that search engines are more likely to show your business in a consumer’s search results.
Everyone in a writing, marketing or PR role should be able to implement SEO best practices into their content, as good SEO optimizes a business’s visibility online, resulting in better traffic to the website.
Here are some SEO tips which will improve your businesses search engine ranking:
- Understand keyword placement: You want to use your keyword a handful of times on a web page, but it must be included at the top, as Google supports terms that appear at the top.
- Don’t duplicate anything: Google hates duplicates, including title tags, meta description tags, landing pages, and image alt text, as it doesn’t know which version to include, exclude or rank for query results.
- Optimize your title tag: You want your keyword in your page title, as search engines pay close attention to the terms you use in your title tag. However, only use one keyword per title.
- Maximize your website’s loading speed: Google also ranks websites based on their loading speed. You can optimize loading speed by condensing images or avoiding bulky themes.
- Use internal linking: Add a link from one page of your business’ website to another, using anchor text that includes the main keyword for the page you are linking to.
(Image Source: We Are Kemb)
#2 Teach them about the brand and its offerings
How can an employee represent and promote a brand and its products or services if they don’t know everything there is to know? To create a successful ambassador, you must teach them about:
- Business goals: They need to know what their content aims to achieve; consumer education, engagement or loyalty, the sale of a specific product, organic or referral traffic, or brand awareness. They can then tailor the content to a particular goal; for example, a video review of the latest product will hopefully increase sales.
- Target audience: They need to know who their target audience is so they can tailor content to meet the wants and needs of those people. Market segmentation data gives employees a better understanding of the age, gender, values, interests, location, and purchasing habits of their target audience.
- Marketing channels: They need to know where their content is heading; social media, websites, blogs, press releases, advertisements or emails. This content can even differentiate between social media channels, as TikTok favors videos, while Instagram favors a carousel of images with a caption.
Any employee transforming into a digital PR ambassador may also benefit from testing examples of your business’s products or services. This allows them to form honest and accurate opinions.
#3 Let them take advantage of their professional relationships
Employees may have formed a contact book of beneficial, professional relationships throughout their careers, including with journalists and bloggers. They can use these relationships to acquire backlinks from high domain authority websites that are well-trusted by search engines.
Here are some advantages of high-quality backlinks:
- Improves off-page SEO metrics: Google measures the quality and number of incoming links to create a website’s overall SEO score.
- Increases search engine rankings: Google’s ranking algorithm also helps determine the order in which your brand’s URL ranks in the search engine results page (SERP) for relevant keywords and search queries.
- Results in referral traffic: Consumers can click on a link in an article or blog post and land on one of your web pages, indirectly getting referral traffic to your website.
- Increases domain authority: Domain authority is a scoring factor, ranging from 1 to 100, that estimates the strength and credibility of your website.
- Continuous advertising: Backlinks remain in place long after the initial link was acquired.
Your employees may also be able to build relationships with influencers and, subsequently, implement influencer marketing to promote your brand’s products or services.
(Image Source: Intercontact)
Conclusion
Whether a big or small business, you may not have vast public relations, advertising or marketing budgets, but you do have the power of your employees.
Your employees can be a vital asset in helping generate brand awareness and promote your products or services. Therefore, with the proper support, your employees can become valuable digital PR ambassadors.
