We've already established that SEO and PR are partners in crime (see Part 1 of this series). And by now you know that this magic combination helps give your digital marketing the sort of boost unlikely to happen if relying on only one or the other.
But in this article we're going to delve a little more in the three types of media embraced by technicians in both fields of practice: (owned media, earned media and paid media.
Anything that your business has branded directly such as a blog, website, or social media page is owned. Press Page notes that working to optimise these media outlets will have a positive impact on your brand awareness, site traffic, etc., but ensure you always promote content that's valuable to your audience.
Tips for creating regular, newsworthy and captivating stories include:
Media can be earned when your PR team builds relationships with journalists, bloggers, etc. who can post your content and stories through their site. This provides quality backlinks and brand mentions that lead back to your owned media outlets. You can also earn media by "getting press mentions, positive reviews, reposts, recommendations," and by "by helping journalists and content writers author their articles."
Team Lewis notes that successful PR strategies include:
Building these relationships will "help create brand awareness, drive referral traffic, [and] reinforce web presence," as well as make your content even more valuable and visible.
HubSpot informs readers that "paid media is one method by which organisations can promote their content through sponsored social media posts, display ads, paid search results, video ads," etc. Paid media, like sponsored content and promoted content, can help your brand amplify its own media, broaden brand reach, receive better click-through rates, increase traffic and win over earned media.
There are various forms of paid media that you can utilise, including:
There are a variety of different sponsored and promoted content that you can utilise via Facebook business. Some of these include:
Facebook ads are generally adaptable to your own marketing goals by stating your objective, selecting your target audience, ad placement, budgeting, etc.
LinkedIn ads functions similarly to Facebook in how you can place your ads and types of ads that you can choose from. They offer sponsored updates, sponsored content and sponsored InMails!
Twitter ads function utilising ad campaigns where advertisers are able to choose from the following objectives:
Following objective settings, you can choose the target audience, submit offers on the "cost per interaction", and choose your sponsored Tweets. Paid promoted Tweets are ads that appear on users' Twitter feeds, search results page, "promoted trends, or through official Twitter advertising partners."
YouTube
YouTube advertising offers a variety of advertisements that you can choose from, including:
Pay-per-clicks (PPC)
PPCs will promote your brand awareness through search engines. It will place your advertisement on or near the top of the search results page and be labelled as an ad. You're responsible for paying a small fee for clicks on your ad, but it does help rank you higher in the SERP, which can increase your total sales!
Display ads
These easily recognisable advertisements can be found as "pop-ups, wallpaper ads, banners, and video ads [and] can be found on almost every web page on the internet." While these ads are an easy and cheap way to promote your brand, people tend to ignore them because they are so prevalent.
If you're interested in putting these practices into place, keep reading the final instalment - PART 3: PUTTING SEO INTO PRACTICE EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT AN EXPERT