What is Digital PR? Why, how, and where does it come from? What is it’s scope? What is the correct definition for Digital PR? Is it correct to compare and overlap it to Digital Marketing?
What is le Digital PR? Why, how, and where does it come from?
Let’s first define Public Relations… a set of strategic communication processes that:
- build relationships between organizations and their target audience;
- promote ideas and activities of institutions, companies, associations, political parties, as well as private individuals;
- manage the client’s image/identity and encourage the perception of a positive image.
Public Relation managers/organizations deal with media relations, event planning, social & environmental communications, lobbying, crisis management, reputation management, marketing communication, and internal communication. Depending on the target audience activities they adapt their plans to the objectives.
Communicative activities for the most part are typically aimed at a professional stakeholders audience: shareholders, managers, employees, suppliers, journalists, banks and government agencies. Excluding marketing these activities rarely deal directly with the customer or end user.
Today, however, the scenario has changed. With the advent of Web 2.0, thanks to Information Technologies related to social media, clients and users have come closer to the reality previously only enjoyed by products or services. They have become, in fact, just as important as the traditional stakeholders.
Due to this a new discipline has been born within the communication field: Digital PR. Thanks to the very nature of new media where the user is the focus, the roles of communicator and marketer begin to overlap… so much so that it is often difficult to draw a dividing line between the specialist fields of Digital PR and Digital Marketing.
One can easily see this with a quick look at the wide variation of nouns that distinguish these two activities: Content Curation, Content Marketing, SEO, SEM, Linking Building, Keyword targeting, Branding Journalism, Storytelling, Influencer Marketing, Web Advertising, Social Advertising, Native Advertising, Social Selling, Lead Generation, Buzz Marketing, eMail Marketing, Personal Branding, Web Reputation, etc. We can safely say that digital media has allowed a loving union between Communication and Marketing as never before. This in itself is indicative of strong changes in action.
Enzo Rimedio