| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |
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1 | # | Tweet | Category | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2 | 1 | Most important tip of all to start with - campaigns with no links happen to everyone and campaigns that only build a small number of links are common. The definition of campaign success is far more nuanced than just the number of links built and different for every campaign. | General | |||||||||||||||||||||||
3 | 2 | There isn’t a set way to do ideation. It will vary from person to person. Find what works best for you/your team and use that. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
4 | 3 | The links you build from #DigitalPR are great but they’ll have minimal impact if your Tech #SEO is shit, especially if you have a large site. It will reduce the potential impact on rankings but also limit how much referral traffic is able to convert (now or later). | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
5 | 4 | Digital PR isn’t “link built, job done”. If users don’t click on your link, you’re not landing on the right sites. If they don’t engage on the site once they click the link then you need to review the content and/or the UX on the site. | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
6 | 5 | Don’t annoy Journalists! Even if you think “I’ll keep pestering as I’ll probably never send them another story”, you might be damaging their trust for the rest of us! | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
7 | 6 | If you are creating an overall index score, make sure it’s easy for the user to understand. An index score of 70 out of a possible 100 means a lot more than an index score of 70. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
8 | 7 | The relevance of a campaign to the brand isn’t always as straightforward as “a sofa brand producing content about sofas”. Think more along the lines of what content would be relevant to this audience who is also our target audience. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
9 | 8 | If someone covers your campaign - say thank you! | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
10 | 9 | Set up Google Alerts to monitor what your competitors are doing as well as your own brand/client. Google Alerts are also a great way of monitoring industry news and what certain sites are writing about a topic using the "site:" parameter. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
11 | 10 | You can also Google Alerts to monitor campaigns that are getting covered. E.g. - “research shows” “a new study” “new data” etc. If you want to monitor the type of data stories a specific covers add site:domain to the alert. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
12 | 11 | High open rates are good but MULTIPLE opens are the true sign of success. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
13 | 12 | If you have a new client that has a strong existing backlink profile, look at what sites are driving referral traffic. These are the sites your audience read and engage on and should be your priority to build links on. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
14 | 13 | Campaigns that help collect user data are worth their weight in gold. This is a super underrated aspect of dream job campaigns. Don’t force it in but also don’t forget to consider it. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
15 | 14 | The end goal of any content campaign is ultimately to get people to read your content. Don't neglect the real life impact your content might have on people reading it. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
16 | 15 | When you put your data in an infographic, always try and include the data in a table too. This makes it easier for Google to use the data for a featured snippet which can boost you up to the top of the SERP. Using read more tags won't stop the data being seen by Google. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
17 | 16 | inspiration resources - Digital PR Examples, Content Curated, Weekly PR, Data is Beautiful, Root, Reboot, The Pudding, Content Hubble, JBH, Digital PR Summit, CMA | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
18 | 17 | Google Trends isn’t just for web results. You can also see what YouTube and Google Image searches are trending too. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
19 | 18 | Media databases aren’t essential for finding Journalist’s emails - they just make it quicker. With good processes and some extra work you can either find or guess pretty much any email. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
20 | 19 | If your campaigns gets a bunch of dodgy looking links, the vast majority of the time you don’t need to worry about disavowing them in Search Console. Google will just ignore them and they won’t do any damage. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
21 | 20 | Google Images can be great for researching data vis ideas. Search for something like “every country’s favourite” or “most popular in map” for map popularity campaigns. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
22 | 21 | If you’re creating how to guides, look at YouTube search volume as well as Google. This will help show you what content is well suited to video as well as text. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
23 | 22 | Interactive assets are awesome for turning coverage into links because writers can’t copy them into their post. This means that they have to link to the page as an extension of their story. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
24 | 23 | Search volume in Ahrefs for “15 minutes of fame” topics aren’t always reliable if you’re doing a “most searched for” campaign. In the example below the data says 1.4k searches per month but you can see that a) all the searches were within 2 months and b) the data only goes up to Dec 2019. This isn't being searches for 1.4k times per month. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
25 | 24 | YouTube search volume is an underrated metric for "most searched for" campaigns. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
26 | 25 | One of the best ways to find sites to send your campaign to is to Google similar campaigns and run them through Ahrefs to see which sites linked to that campaign. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
27 | 26 | Asking for links to be added to your coverage? Don’t just ask for a link to be added, tell the Journalist why it will be beneficial to them and their readers for a link to be added, e.g. - it will make it easier for your readers to find our more about the story | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
28 | 27 | If you really want to impress clients with the value of the links that you build, look at Referral Traffic in Google Analytics and see if any of that traffic resulted in purchases | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
29 | 28 | If you’re looking at global search volume in Ahrefs for a topic rather than a specific keyword, look at both UK and US data as you’ll often get meaningful global figures that have no volume in the UK for example. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
30 | 29 | If you have a campaign with some interesting data, make it easy for the user to find if they’re skim reading. Use headings, lists, charts, etc, Intros are nice but don’t give them your life story before getting to what they came here for. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
31 | 30 | Struggling to find a Journalist’s email? Search for their handle in Twitter along with email and it will show you tweets where they might have included their email. Also always worth double checking it still relates to their current role and not an old position. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
32 | 31 | An underrated metric to measure the success of your Digital PR work is branded searches. If more people are searching for your brand then the Digital PR content is working! | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
33 | 32 | Looking specifically for a dataset? Google have a search engine specifically for dataset results - https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/ | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
34 | 33 | Annotations in Google Analytics marking when your campaign was launched are a good way to make clear to your client’s stakeholders the type of impact it had on the website. | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
35 | 34 | SEO takes time to produce results but Digital PR can be a great way of showing something more tangible to new clients before they start to see ranking improvements. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
36 | 35 | Make sure your assets (tables, infographics, etc) are optimised for mobile. Journalists probably check out your story on mobile and readers are definitely viewing your landing page on mobile. Tables that are hard to take in on mobile is really frustrating UX. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
37 | 36 | If you have external links in your content, set them to open in a new window/tab. Why would you send users to another site and then close the tab with your site on? | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
38 | 37 | Journalists still need stories on a Friday too ;) | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
39 | 38 | All the outreach tips and hacks in the world don’t mean anything if the story itself isn’t interesting and relevant enough. It’ll help get your pitch read but the end result will still be the same. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
40 | 39 | Picked up a lot of traffic from new users as a result of a Digital PR campaign? Now’s a good time to look at remarketing to them so they come back! | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
41 | 40 | If your data doesn’t give you a strong enough headline, look at earlier versions of the dataset too. 42% of the UK feel unfulfilled is a good headline but the amount of people feeling unfulfilled in the UK has increased 22% in the last 3 years is even better. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
42 | 41 | Journalists don’t get all their stories from email pitches. Find out what forums/reddits/influencers/etc they follow and utilise those platforms for extra chances of getting your story seen and picked up. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
43 | 42 | Regionalising your data is absolute money for your outreach. It gives you a super relevant story to a regional news site and they love lists that place their region as the best/worst at something. If you're running a survey, make sure you collect those regional demos! | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
44 | 43 | Fancy expensive visuals are super to have, but ask yourself what value they are adding to the content. If they're just improving the aesthetics and not the user journey, they're probably not worth the cost and are just cutting into your ROI. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
45 | 44 | When creating a blog post, Google your main keyword and read what the first page of results write about. If your post is a summary of the content on page 1 you’ll struggle to rank all other things being equal. If you can say something nobody else is saying you’ll rank higher. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
46 | 45 | Sign up to your competitor’s newsletters. This is a great way of snooping on what they’re up to and finding inspiration for what you can do based on what they are/aren't doing. If you're worried about them seeing your email, create a Gmail and forward it to your work email. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
47 | 46 | Choose the format after you’ve chosen the content. Don’t think "I want to do an interactive map campaign" and then think of content to suit it afterwards. Test visualising your data in different formats, present it to people outside your work bubble, and use that feedback. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
48 | 47 | New clients often want results quick and agencies want to earn their trust quick as well. Look at quick turnaround projects you can work on in the first month to earn trust quick. Look at their existing content and think along the lines of easy to put together brainteasers and quick stories about search volume, Instagram data, trends, etc. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
49 | 48 | The ONS release calendar is a great page to keep bookmarked to find data when it’s fresh out the box and to also know when new datasets are about to be released. Ideal if you’re using a 2019 dataset but the 2020 data is due to be released in the coming weeks. https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
50 | 49 | If you run a great campaign that you built some nice links and the website undergoes a site migration, for gods sake make sure the url still works and add a 301 redirect to the new page if it doesn’t. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
51 | 50 | A lot of sites will have a media pack detailing who their readership is. Referring to this in your pitch can be an easy win. “I have data about mums aged 30-49 which according to your media pack makes up a large % of your readership which is why I think this story will connect with them”. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
52 | 51 | If the only reason to link to your site is that you supplied a story the Journalist completely covered every aspect of in their article, your link request is weak. Make sure you have a blog post with additional detail to the story that can be linked to as a “read more”. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
53 | 52 | If you run any type of campaign that has user interaction as a CTA (competition, user generated content, etc), put the submission form on your site rather than giving the option of emailing. Any coverage then has to link to the submission form on your site. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
54 | 53 | https://twitter.com/DigitalPR_Tips/status/1433021821163429897 | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
55 | 54 | sharedcount.com is a great free tool for seeing how many Facebook shares coverage of your campaign received. Useful for comparing engagement between campaigns and discovering which sites have the most relevant audience for your brand. | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
56 | 55 | Don't lose sight of the fact that you should be building links that your target audience actually want to click on, not just for SEO purposes. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
57 | 56 | https://spotifycharts.com/ is a great tool if you want to track what the most played tracks on Spotify for a particular day and/or week are. You can also filter by region which is very useful for adding extra angles to your data. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
58 | 57 | Don't forget to add internal links to your campaign page. 🤞 that page will earn lots of links which build the authority of the page and can be passed along to other relevant pages on your site. This is great for SEO but also for directing users over to your commercial pages. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
59 | 58 | Internal data is some of the best sources of data that you can use. Why? Only you have them. They can be golden for creating stories about trends in site searches and product sales. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
60 | 59 | With obvious exceptions there are very few hard and fast rules when it comes to outreach. Some think emojis help, some don't. Sometimes you just gotta trust your gut as you start to learn the preferences of individual Journalists. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
61 | 60 | If you've created a campaign that involves currency data and you're sending it to Irish sites, make sure you convert your figures from £ to €. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
62 | 61 | Analyse the backlink profile of competitors as well as your own. This will highlight not only the links they have that you don't but also the links you can target that neither of you have to extend that link gap more in your favour. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
63 | 62 | Data campaigns about people rather than places can be used for regional outreach too - just invest a little extra time finding out where they were born and/or live and now you've got an extra angle to expand your outreach with. For example, "Hertfordshire's Molly-Mae Hague ranks as..." | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
64 | 63 | Promote your content on Social as you're sending it out. It's another platform for Journalists to find it from and can become a story they see without even opening your email if it gets enough engagements, especially if they're already following you. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
65 | 64 | The most searched for something isn’t necceserily the most popular something. Lance Armstrong is probably still one of the most "searched for" cyclists but he definitely isn't one of the most "popular". All you need to do is accurately define "popular" and/or what the most searched for truly represents. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
66 | 65 | There's a fine line between your data being super detailed and too complex for your target audience to understand. Sometimes you may need to dumb it down a little to your own despair so that it is easier for your target audience to understand and connect with. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
67 | 66 | If you see a data led campaign that you found interesting, check out the methodology section to see where and how they sourced the data and keep a bookmarks folder of any data sources that are of interest. You never know when you might have a use for them later. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
68 | 67 | If you're running a survey, make sure you're collecting your demographic data. This gives better context to your data and gives you lots of extra angles that you can focus your outreach with to be more relevant to your target publication. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
69 | 68 | If you can't afford to pay for a paid outreach tool like Buzzstream, Hunter.io (yes the same one as the email finder extension) have a great free MailTracker plugin for Gmail to track opens - https://hunter.io/mailtracker | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
70 | 69 | You can plan for "Reactive" PR. Seasonal events such as financial earnings, exam results, etc happen every year. The dates are known ahead of time so you can prepare comments beforehand ready for when they hit the news. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
71 | 70 | To get insight into what type of comments Journalists need for these stories, look at the same stories they ran last year and what comments were used. Or for a specific Journalist go through their recent stories to spot trends in their expert comments. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
72 | 71 | Work with new clients to come up with a list of "dream publications" to get coverage from. This is great for setting a more specific KPI goal to be working towards. Also works really well on an individual level when you start a new role to have a milestone to celebrate. | Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
73 | 72 | "As featured in" logos from sites that covered your content can be really good for sending trust signals to both Google and the user and in turn help to improve on site conversions. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
74 | 73 | Pay attention to what is going on in other areas of marketing and advertising such as TV, OOH, Social, etc. Most creative concepts that perform well in other channels will be great inspiration for Digital PR content too. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
75 | 74 | Use Google Trends to create well rounded in-depth stories rather than just X is being searched Y% more than Z. Trends is great for quick to put together data but keep in mind that it's a free and easy to use tool and many publications are also using it internally now. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
76 | 75 | Many news sites will have overnight editors. They need stories too. Likewise weekend editors. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
77 | 76 | Dream job campaigns are great for building links but they're also a goldmine for collecting user data that you can build a mailing list, remarketing list, etc out of. Plus the huge numbers of referral traffic going to your application form, and therefore landing on your site. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
78 | 77 | If you've found a site that has awesome data for your campaign but they don't make it publicly available, just ask them if they could share it with you for your campaign (and explain the benefits to them to sweeten the deal). Worst case they ignore you and you've lost nothing. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
79 | 78 | Syndicated coverage likely isn't adding any extra value to your SEO outside of the original link that they canonical to. Don't focus on that, focus on all the amazing PR coverage, brand mentions and referral traffic you're sending to your site. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
80 | 79 | Pay attention to how you're formatting publication names in your pitches. It's not a great look if they like to stylise their name in all caps and you write it in lowercase. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
81 | 80 | Don't forget that not every email open will track in whatever tool you're using. The real open rate for your emails is always a little higher than what's being shown. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
82 | 81 | Influencer Marketing Hub is very popular for the Instagram earnings calculator but they also have a lot of other great social media tools for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
83 | 82 | Your brands/clients social channels can be a great way of testing new content ideas and data sources to see what connects and what doesn't before investing further time and resources on that concept/format. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
84 | 83 | If your clients are only crediting you for dofollow links from your content, train them out of that. You're getting no credit for results that should be credited and it's affirming poor practices within the client. | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
85 | 84 | Give the Journalist everything that they'd need at the start. Don't ask if they'd like you to share more images with them. If you've got them just share everything at the start rather than making them spend more time asking first and possibly missing your window. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
86 | 85 | If you're using Digital PR to rank for local terms, dofollow vs nofollow doesn't matter as much. In fact, even just a brand mention from a regional news site can have a big impact on local search terms. Link building for Local SEO is different compared to national rankings. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
87 | 86 | @VisualCap is an incredible account to follow for data vis inspiration for your #DigitalPR campaigns. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
88 | 87 | Learning how not to do something is often better than learning how to do it properly. @GraphCrimes is a great account to follow to see awful graphs being used in completely the wrong way. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
89 | 88 | If you're running a search volume piece, pay attention to if your keywords could have multiple purposes, e.g there are two famous people with the same name. If this has a big impact on results then consider longer tail searches or switching to a new idea. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
90 | 89 | Deciding whether to use emojis in your email/subject line can be a tricky call. Some Journalists think they work but they're a turn off for some. A Journalist's Twitter can give you some great insight as to how they feel about emojis, as can the articles they write. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
91 | 90 | Stock imagery is a very underrated form of content for link building purposes. Everyone needs to use it and if you can highlight a gap and produce quality free to use imagery, you have an extremely sustainable asset that you own to build links with. | Ideation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
92 | 91 | If you're ranking countries/regions by the "best" or "most" something, you should really consider weighting your results by population for a more accurate outcome. Otherwise your rankings are just going to be dominated by the biggest regions. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
93 | 92 | If you're doing Spotify playlist campaigns based on keywords, check that the playlists being analysed are actually relevant to your topic. E.g, playlists containing the keyword "shower" could also return baby shower playlists that wouldn't be relevant for 🚿 songs. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
94 | 93 | Don't forget that not all 🇺🇸 Journalists are on the same time zone. If you want to make sure it lands in their inbox at a certain time then try and find their Twitter and there will usually be a location in there to tell you what time zone they're in. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
95 | 94 | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nofollow/dfogidghaigoomjdeacndafapdijmiid/related?hl=en is a really good Chrome extension if you want to save time checking if your links are nofollow links. Once it's running on the page it will simply add a red box around any links that are nofollow. | SEO | |||||||||||||||||||||||
96 | 95 | Subject lines with the name of the person you're pitching to can be an effective way of increasing open rates. But make sure your subject line also gives enough context and isn't a blatant bait and switch tease to ensure they open it. | Outreach | |||||||||||||||||||||||
97 | 96 | Food Delivery apps such as Just Eat are great data resources. You can look at the number of delivery options available in a certain area but you can get really tasty data when you start applying filters such as customer rating, opening times and hygiene ratings to your searches. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
98 | 97 | It's super important that your methodology is clear and makes sense to the average reader. To make sure it makes sense to people outside of your Digital PR bubble, show it to friends and family and ask them to explain it back to you. | Data | |||||||||||||||||||||||
99 | 98 | Know your coverage has been syndicated but struggling to find all of that coverage? Google the headline but click on repeat search with omitted results at the bottom of the SERP. If you know the page title stays the same then also try with "intitle:" before the page title. | Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
100 | 99 | Looking for campaign inspiration around a certain topic. Head to Twitter and search for @DigitalPREx followed by your keyword. Example - https://twitter.com/search?q=%40digitalprex%20christmas&src=typed_query. Obviously this will also work for ... | Ideation |