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In order to compete online, your brand needs to be optimized, publicized, socialized and visualized. In today’s social media world,
brands don’t influence people, people do (and so do search results)! Whether it’s optimizing for your brand name in social profiles or monitoring your Page 1 search results, public relations is an influential variable in branding.
Online media coverage, whether it’s an article in The New York Times, a niche blog or reviews in Yelp or Google, influences your brand’s online reputation. More than anything, brand PR is allowing brands to act as publishers to create and manage a brand online.
"Awareness, favorability and intention to purchase all go through the roof when you tie a social gesture to them."
–Jon Steinberg, President, BuzzFeed
Are you broadcasting static messages to your audience? If so, chances are that it’s not working. Today’s businesses are expected to
be transparent and authentic and with that, brands have more opportunity than ever to be conversational and influential online.
Public relations has always been a vehicle for company communications. Even in the absence of formal branding, it’s long been the job of the PR pro to extract and craft a company’s communications.
But with the accessibility of the digital world, something new is happening to brands; it’s not just you who will be spreading a message. In the online world, content is created for the audience to share.
The irony in the digital age is that brands have never had less control over branding than they do now, but they also have more than ever. What this means is the brand identity must be carefully protected through a company’s interactions online – the way it speaks to the community, the images and stories its tells. Because whether your message is unified and stellar or disjointed and dull, it will build reputation.
If you search your company’s name in Google or Facebook, what do you see?
"… There is no reason I can think of that every organization wouldn’t have an online newsroom. Small companies and non-profits can take advantage of the level playing field that digital and social offer. And, large companies can save a tremendous amount of time and money in providing photo and video assets online and can use their online newsroom for financial compliance."
–Steve Momorella, Co-Founder, TEKGROUP International
Social media has become a powerful, effective, and cost-efficient news distribution network for organizations of all sizes. According to the 2019 TEKGROUP Online Newsroom Survey report (PDF):
"Take the steps to actually care about what users want to know."
–Jack Mason, IBM Social Strategist
Your company has a story to tell. But the question is how does your audience want to receive it? If you understand this, you’ll begin to understand how to tell the story. The channels that are available to us now — blogs, social networks, and more — allows brands to be the publisher, to be the influencer. We now have the challenge and the opportunity to define how to create and maintain a brand through the way we tell the story.
The key to powerful branding online is having the knowledge of Web marketing mixed with the strategy and relationship skills of a public relations pro plus the creativity of a storyteller to bring all these components together into a unified brand online.
From the tiniest detail – like the name you choose for your Twitter handle or how you answer a question in a social community – to a the larger body of content like your collection of images, text and video online, your online presence can make or break your branding.
The Buyer Group asks, is your branding program search and social savvy?
The Buyer Group specializes in brand PR. We know how to craft your brand’s presence, monitor a company’s reputation online, forge relationships and create stories that are worth being shared again and again. Let our experience go to work for you through a brand PR audit, special branding project, brand PR training or brand PR consulting.
The Buyer Group is headed up by CEO Lisa Buyer. Lisa is an industry thought leader in the area of SEO public relations, and is involved in training workshops, conferences and speaking engagements nationwide. Lisa has shared the stage at conferences with companies such as Google, Microsoft and Digg as well as thought leaders such as Brett Tabke, Lee Odden, Greg Jarboe, Marty Weintraub and Dennis Yu. Lisa is a former member of the @ClickZ faculty, University of San Francisco faculty and former adjunct professor at the University of Florida College of Journalism.
Here’s a sampling of what The Buyer Group can do for your brand PR:
To find out more about The Buyer Group’s services, book a free consultation here.
Want to stay on top of Social PR? Subscribe to Social PR Secrets the podcast for the latest trends, news and events reported by Lisa Buyer and her team.