Public relations has been around since the beginning of business and there can be no doubt that even in our modern technology society, will still be around for the foreseeable future. We all have an idea of what public relations involves but do you fully understand why public relations still count for small businesses?
The long standing official description of public relations has remained pretty much unchanged for many years and has been the professions choice when it comes to describing their work. Basically, public relations is strategically placed communication that aims to market a brand and build relationships between a company and their clients.
With the digitalisation of everything consumers are sharing and discussing content more than ever and this leaves the door wide open for brand and reputational damage. Everyone is reviewing and rating products more than ever and all this is done online, on the world wide web for everyone to see. Make a wrong move or receive a bad review and your business could need good public relations more than ever.
With the enormity of an online presence a small modern business these days still has a need for good public relations management. It’s worthwhile for every small business owner to complete a digital marketing course to gain the know-how of modern online public relations management through digital marketing.
Online marketing and the small business
The question is often asked – is public relations still important for the small business? The answer is a resounding yes! Whether a small business’ public relations strategy is geared towards online or a more traditional method, small business still benefits from good digital public relations strategy.
Now that we’ve established that public relations still count for small business let’s take a closer look at the importance of online public relations is important for small organisations.
Here are a few reasons why online public relations is important and should be part of a small business’ overall marketing initiative.
- Far reaching brand awareness – Promoting brand awareness is pretty much at the core of public relations and with marketing online can is a must for any small business. With the internet and all the popular social media platforms small business today is able to cost effectively and instantly reach an ever-widening audience.
- Comprehensive campaigns – With the advent of digital marketing small business can now incorporate entire public relations campaigns online which results a greater impact.
- Quantifiable results – Public relations is all about getting your brand noticed and increasing brand reputation. Both objectives are more achievable using digital marketing and there are many tools available which help small business measure the effectiveness of their public relations campaigns.
- SEO ranking – All online public relations from blogs to press releases results in lots of sharing, likes and promotes engagement, all of which result in an overall higher SEO ranking with the search engines.
Reigning in public relations costs
The dilemma facing every small business is cost of marketing and public relations exercises and a small business must justify this expense, which if not kept in check can quite easily prove costly. Executing a successful public relations campaign is also time consuming which is quite a challenge for small business.
Most small businesses don’t have budget to hire a public relations company, however, if the following techniques and tips are kept in mind public relations can be a great do-it-yourself way to market a small business.
- DIY public relations – Public relations DIY’ers can often become quite overwhelmed with keeping track of campaigns and promotions, however there are severalhandy tools out there in the way of online calendars that can help you stay on top of your public relations diary. It’s vital that a small business gets organised.
- Get connected – To enhance your public relations campaigns it’s a really good idea for small business to reach out and connect to influential bloggers in their industry.
- Get writing – Copywriters are an expensive luxury for small business therefore take a try at writing your own press releases, blogs and social media content to boost your public relations efforts.
Conclusion
We’ve established that creating a public relations presence for small business doesn’t have to break your budget. With a little practice and trial and error small business can still make good use of effective public relations.
