By Akvile Vzesniauskaite, Social Media Project Manager at Adverum Communications

Nowadays, PR is much more than media relations, press releases or launch events. PR becomes a modern combination of classical and new communication trends – integrated, 360 degree PR strategy including visuals, digital solutions, and, of course, blogging. Blogs fit the taste of those who are looking for interesting pieces of news, non-traditional recommendations or educational material.  Why else should one integrate blogging into PR strategy?

It is your own media channel. A blog is a media platform that belongs to a company or brand and provides for the ability to become a digital publisher in a cost-effective way. Having in mind that modern PR – as well as a modern audience – requires engaging content, blogs are the right solution: it allows you to deliver valuable information to a target audience, keeping it easily accessible and building a loyal audience or even a community.

Demonstrate your experience/Showcase your expertise. A blog can help represent a company, brand and create an image of experts working for and with them. If in a blog you regularly share experiences, hands-on insights and experts’ comments, it helps to create a bond between readers and a company/brand or an expert. Of course, to create and maintain such “relationship” with an audience, the blog has to offer useful and interesting information that can’t be found anywhere else. The success also is in the efforts to keep an ongoing dialogue with readers – discussions, FAQs and suggested topics have to be integrated in the content.

Your reputation online. Although sometimes underestimated, your online reputation has a huge impact on how an audience would interact with your brand or services. Nowadays, the web is often the primary source of information.  Many customers choose not to trust a brand if they find a lot of negative information about it online, or no information at all. Having a blog or actively cooperating with bloggers helps to spread relevant information and even block the negative.

A blog can have a positive influence on your websites visibility and traffic. If one of your PR objectives is to increase your website traffic, regular blogging can do wonders. It could have positive impact on website’s SEO score when combined with applicable keywords. Relevant content leads to more hits in search engines and builds higher credibility resulting in better perception of a brand or a company.

Fast way to share news and latest updates. There is one more positive trait of blogging – it allows you to reach the audience very quickly by just posting the information. When creating a PR strategy, think whether you will need to report important news, give advice to customers and clients, share experience or offer audience inspired content. Did you say “Yes” at least once? Then a blog might just be the way to do it.

Of course, such a channel is just a piece of a puzzle that composes a perfect PR strategy. But it is also one of the easiest ones to obtain – so if you still do not have a blog – give it a try (they will be popular for a while…).

Adverum Communications is our partner agency in Lithuania.  Article originally published at PRGN.com