Digital PR strategies: Using social media to influence online brand visibility and reputation

Published June - July 2008

Integrated social media campaigns using public relations techniques to engage in web-based conversations can have a big influence on online brand visibility and reputation.

In fact for many marketers, social media PR campaigns are the key to obtaining G Cred  - having your name, business, product or service, ranked positively in the first page of natural or organic search results on Google.

G Cred is the ‘cred of the next decade’ according to John Follis, author of the book ‘The Credibility Factor’ (quoted in US ‘Ad Week’).

As consumers become more web savvy and discerning, high rankings in natural or organic search (the main part of the online page) are becoming more important. This is because search engines become swamped with advertising (called ad words or pay-per-click) which appears on the right hand side or top of the page and identified as being a ‘sponsored link’, which research shows most consumers recognise as advertising.

Search engines - and especially the market-leader Google - are now far beyond being a simple Yellow Pages directory type service. Today they are a much more sophisticated commercial information source about companies, products, services and people. 

“Google is not a search engine. Google is a reputation-management system. Online your reputation is quantifiable, findable and totally unavoidable”, from The See-Through CEO - Wired Magazine 

Today’s social media environment exposes marketers to risks

Most marketers simply don’t appreciate the depth and breadth to which search engines are scanning and collecting information that can end up in the public domain for the world to see.

Today’s social media environment gives search engines a much richer vein of content to tap into.  It’s not just the content on the company website that might end up on Google.

Information from blogs, podcasts, videos, online newsletters, online media releases, RSS feeds, del.icio.us links, tags, IM accounts etc is being pumped onto the Internet daily- and is being vetted by the search engine robots.

Google doesn’t care about whether what it publishes is good or bad.  The risk for an organisation is that potentially information from up to a dozen electronic sources may be read and assessed by a search engine. Some of it may then end up being listed within a search engine page to be viewed by anyone who cares to look.

For example, any comment made on a blog by an employee that references a specific company or product could end up on page one of a Google search. It’s the equivalent of an internal memo ending up on the front page of a newspaper and what’s more, it is archived on the web - a permanent footprint.

Marketers need to revise their thinking about search engine marketing techniques

Until recently for many marketers, obtaining coverage on search engines such as Google has involved a dual approach viz:

o    Advertise online through pay-per-click campaigns.  It’s done by an external agency that researches key words to be targeted. It requires no input from the marketer.

o    Optimise the web site. It’s done by a web designer and/or external search engine optimisation specialist. Much of it involves technical behind-the-scenes work.

Today, that’s increasingly not enough. With the explosion of the Internet, search engines are collecting - and ranking - content based on a multitude of sources on the web.  The brand, product or marketing manager now has the power to more directly influence rankings.

That’s because content is king.  While building a website so it is technically search-engine friendly is still fundamental, the proliferation of social media tools means the criteria for achieving top search engine rankings has changed.

If a marketer wants to achieve G cred, then it needs to implement a broad web-based integrated communications strategy, based on a solid publishing platform and strong content.  Ideally this strategy should be driven by the public relations and communication specialists.

Social media actually gives marketers significant opportunities

Used in a positive way, web-based conversations can have a big influence on online brand visibility and reputation.

Considerations marketers need to take into account include:

o    If you take great care to ensure all your traditional marketing - from advertising to collateral- is consistently ‘on message’ a similar degree of control and management needs to take place in your online communications.  It should be noted however, that to truly engage, being ‘on conversation’ and listening rather than just on message is important.

o    It’s not just your website that is a source for search engines such as Google to examine and publish.  It’s every piece of communication - formal and informal - which uses the web.  This also includes the personal profiles of your staff, their facebook pages, their LinkedIn profiles etc

o    Engaging with customers, influencers and stakeholders on the web through the medium of social media creates a community of interest about a particular topic that often has more potential to achieve rankings on Google and other search engines than the company-produced web site.

o    In fact, increasingly, alternative forms of publishing such as Blogs, podcasts and video blogs are often key components of a social media strategy that will in turn help achieve G-Cred.

o    Search engine rankings seldom stay static.  Something that ranks top of the first page today can have slipped off by next week. While the Google algorithm is incredibly complex and changes often, what is a constant is the importance of fresh and relevant content.  In short, new content needs to be constantly created and published/posted.

Social media PR is about creating - and maintaining - a conversation with communities though providing credible and useful - content. It’s this conversation that engages and draws in others to give topics the substance and credibility that results in them appearing on the top page of Google or another search engine.

Other reading on this subject:

Online & Social Media: How web savvy is your PR and marketing communications

PR and the Web: New strategies achieve higher rankings on search engines

Websites: 10 reasons why your web site may not be generating results

Digital PR: Tips for engaging with bloggers - a social media strategy

Network PR, the publisher of PR Influences, is the first Australian-based PR agency to specialise in Online PR.  As a consequence it has helped several organisations take their first steps using social media techniques.  Read our blog www.freshchat.com.au  For a no-obligation discussion on the topic click here.