PR campaigns and activity have benefitted from ‘plug-ins’ from other areas of marketing for years, but the digital support from SEO and social media can significantly boost activity results.
The support enables visibility across audiences PR alone might not reach and SEO ensures a PR campaign can significantly impact an online presence.
But the relationship between them isn’t one-way, for social media activity often relies on PR content and SEO works hand in hand with PR to increase online visibility.
How does PR, SEO and social media work together in real life?
All PR activity needs an understanding of the subject, what will impact media channels and often a big dose of research or data. Quite often, the toolkit utilised by the SEO team – such as keyword research tools and search trends data – can be a great starting point to begin gathering that data.
Taking the subject of pet dementia as an example, which was previously something only some veterinary professionals were aware of.
Awareness of dementia in humans has benefited from years of campaigning and personal impacts of those suffering and their family and friends.
So, how could Vets4Pets raise awareness of this subject? That’s when we stepped in to manage a PR campaign supported by SEO and social.
With our longstanding relationship with Vets4Pets constantly evolving, the relationships we had built with vets meant we would regularly unearth new stories, which is how the subject of pet dementia came to my attention.
For 18 months we researched the subject with agency colleagues and the veterinary team at Vets4Pets to help develop a campaign that would be long-lasting and positively impact pets and owners.
Through scientific research, sensitively developing case studies, creating an online diagnosis tool and storytelling, we delivered the first part of the ongoing campaign in 2021.
The PR campaign was mapped out to ensure social (paid and organic) supported the storytelling and scientific information, while SEO enabled the content used to boost visitors to the online diagnosis tool.
This tool was built on the Vets4Pets website to act as an information hub for pet owners and veterinary professionals, to ensure no scaremongering on what is a sensitive subject.
Traffic was strategically driven to the site through tactical paid and organic social media and video content, media relations, sensitively crafted case studies, all supported by an informative news release.
Broadcast media was a big target for the campaign, which meant carrying out media training where necessary, to ensure the right messages were conveyed to potentially big audiences
The words used in the audio, video and written content was crafted with support from the SEO team, whose research into keywords and phrases around the subject helped ensure the impact was significant.
Media coverage was achieved over a four week period across regional and national BBC channels (TV, radio and online), along with ITV, and national and regional print and online outlets.
With 86 brand mentions, 646 uses of keywords, 70 images or video used, 27 backlinks and an average DA (Domain Authority) of 77 for online coverage, it resulted in thousands of appointments and enquiries at Vets4Pets practices within the first month and delivered more than 10,000 uses of the online diagnosis tool.
Thanks to this initial PR campaign, with significant support from the SEO and social teams, the subject of pet dementia has become a regularly trending topic, increasing awareness and ensuring pets that suffer from the condition are much more likely to receive appropriate treatment, just like us humans do.
That’s the power of PR working with SEO and social.
Brief us
If you’d like to brief our PR, SEO and Social teams in on a project to boost your business or bring awareness to an important issue, visit our contact us page.
Managing Director
