Social Strategy for Digital PR Professionals

In the long run, segmenting and evaluating channels, planning a precise process of social listening, and properly measuring the effectiveness of your choices all contribute the the broad and overall goal of increasing sales and awareness.

These contributors are common parts of a solid digital PR strategy, and they all speak to three key intersections: influencer marketing, media campaigns, and brand advocacy.

Digital PR & influencer marketing

In terms of strategy, the analysis of big data from social media allows for a fine-tuning of the conversion funnel that can be used for further activation.

The reason is simple: big data creates clear indicators relevant to the interception of micro-influencers. While micro-influencers find themselves outside the clique of online personalities with a widespread reputation, they are still highly influential and credible within niche audiences.

The metrics:

To evaluate the authority and relevance of any influencer, you have to monitor certain KPIs:

• Involvement - the number of mentions and volume of themed content
• Potential reach - the average number of visits to the site and target audience (fans, followers, subscribers, etc.)
• Engagement of the audience - the rate of interaction and engagement
• Network - interactions and contacts with other relevant influencers within the specific community
• Media and platforms - the channels which the influencer is the most active

Furthermore, it’s important to support those metrics with some qualitative assessment. Some of those indicators are creativity, positioning, and differentiation from competitors.

With this type of assessment and this much data, you’ll need the help of certain analysis solutions like:

• classification tags - allow you to segment and classify information
• semantic clusters - where you can find themes and sub-themes
• rule classifications - filter the most relevant information based on criteria such as influencer score, channels, geographies, etc.
• benchmark solutions - evaluate and compare the information previously selected

Digital PR & media campaigns

Campaigns attached to specific media publications reinforce a brand’s fundamental positioning. With regard to these campaigns, digital PR professionals must be able to maximize investments based on reach, impact, and capacity to generate buzz. However, only in-depth evaluation can allow the segmentation and differentiation of channels.

More metrics:

• Volume  - reach, segmented by channel and theme
• Developments and variations - trend of mentions over time
• Interactions - social share metrics and engagement
• Weight of the speakers - reporters, editors, authors, etc.
• Territorial mapping - buzz segmented by geographical area

Best practices

Some strategic actions have to be taken in order to capitalize off the insights gathered. Actions like:

• Identify the trending topic to provide content of interest for the publication’s audience
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of proposed editorial content in relation to that of competitors
• Create partnerships and collaborations based on the target audience of the publisher

Digital PR & Advocacy

When influencers and media outlets are working together to promote your brand, an environment welcoming of advocacy is created. This advocacy is shared by:

• Existing customers operating off brand loyalty, generating upsell
• New audience members finding their way down the conversion funnel

Consequently, digital PR professionals should be able to analyze the different groups and profile the message by:

• Share of voice
• Sentiment
• Purchase behavior
• Relevance

When influencer marketing is enhanced through strategic media partnerships, resulting in brand advocacy, upsell is optimized and business objectives are easier to achieve. As social media platforms and channels continue to multiply, this type of digital PR work will become increasingly vital.