Online Media Relations: Helps in Building a Brand’s Presence Online

Building an online presence is more than just setting up a website and a couple of social media accounts. Business owners have to attract customers to their brand. A lot of new customers will come from SEO, ads and content marketing, but many can be gained through good online media relations.

Speed and Accuracy

Like its offline counterpart, online media relations revolve around building relationships with journalists and key influencers. However, online media relations allow for a much more accurate approach, thanks a slew of information accessible in a manner of seconds. During an online media outreach effort, publicists have access to a journalist’s or blogger’s Twitter account, previous stories, preferences, groups and so on. All of this information can be used to great effect, and to increase the likelihood of pitching a good story.

Spamming Press Releases is Not the Answer

Many classically trained PR specialists are used to the old way of doing things offline: sending out a ton of press releases. This does not go well in the online world, due to the fact that many bloggers and journalists are amateurs, and as such, their world of PR is different.

The key to successfully pitching a press release is relevance. As mentioned above, you want to know the journalist or blogger you are trying to reach. While building a personal, one-on-one relationship with a journalist is essential to both the offline and online worlds, spamming will not get your foot in the door when you are going for an online media outreach.

The reason bloggers view the situation from a different angle is simple: the relationship between a blogger and his or her audience is personal. This is why a blogger is not interested in impersonal stories or news.

So, if you truly want to gain a blogger’s or journalist’s attention, you want to:

• Send exclusive stories: If your pitch looks like it’s been broadcasted to hundreds of other blogs, it will lose a lot of its appeal.
• Personalize: Start of your pitch with the blogger’s name in the greeting, and a few personal details that show that you’ve done your homework.
• Keep it short: There’s no need for longform copy here. A short email that gets to the point will ensure that your pitch is read entirely.
• Avoid attachments: In some cases, attachments might be ok, but it’s best to stay on the safe side and send links to your content.

Keep Social Media in Mind

You can start building a professional relationship with bloggers and influencers by connecting with them on social media. You have LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook – all of these platforms can help you create an initial rapport that will set the stage for a potentially long collaboration.

Conclusion

Online media relations can help build a strong online presence. By building relationships in the right way, and understanding the unspoken rules of online media relations, a company can establish itself at the forefront of the blogosphere and online magazines. This will help the company’s brand expand and attract more users and customers.