How expert commentary can maximise your brand's digital PR strategy

A common tactic used in digital PR to build backlinks is the creation and outreach of expert commentary. It’s more important than ever to position your brand as an authoritative voice in your relevant field to reach your target audience and build trust in your brand.

Using expert comments as an outreach tactic not only gives your brand an actual voice, but also contributes to your existing digital PR activities and builds quality links to your website.

What is expert commentary?

Comments or quotes aim to provide extra background information, advice, or opinion on a topic that a journalist is writing about. This additional commentary can add value or credibility to the piece, or back up the intention of the article. Expert commentary can come in the form of actionable tips and advice, or provide a professional opinion on a topic.

For example, a useful comment from a garden company on the best time of year to plant tulip bulbs adds an element of expertise to the content, reassuring the publication’s readers that what they are reading is correct and can be trusted. While a gardening publication may be perfectly suited to writing about this topic, a general newspaper may not – therefore the piece will benefit from having expertise added to it.

However, it is important that the topics you’re providing expertise on are relevant to your brand. For example, it wouldn’t make sense for a company that sells musical instruments to advise readers of a gardening publication on the best time of year to plant tulip bulbs, so this link-building strategy needs to be kept relevant to the client industry or field. This also makes it easier for a journalist to associate you with that topic, so if they’re needing another expert on a similar topic in the future – you may be their first choice!

Why do journalists value comments from brands?

According to Surena Chande, Freelance Journalist & Copywriter at various national publications, journalists will seek comments from companies and brands to provide specialist insights on the topic they are covering.

Not only does expert commentary help to give better insights into the topics we write about as journalists, but it also helps readers to trust our content more. You’re more likely to read an article about sleep if it contains tips from experts, rather than generic and unfounded tips from someone who has minimal knowledge of a subject. It is our job to tell a story properly and inform the public of the ins and outs of an event or topic, which we aren’t doing if we merely go off our thoughts, opinions, and limited knowledge.

Finally, it can sometimes help to pad out or conclude a story. For example, when I’ve worked on newsdesks in the past, I’ve had to produce multiple 12- to 20-line stories through the duration of my shift, and a brilliant way to pad out these lighter stories (by filling several of the lines) was to have expert input – be it a body language expert, a therapist who specialised in relationships or anyone else who could be relevant and able to give more perspective. Even if I had all the knowledge I needed for a piece, it still helps readers to understand and trust my copy more if I’ve got an expert to lay it out clearly in their own words to conclude and reiterate what my article was trying to convey.

How can expert commentary help your business?

By providing quotes or comments related to your industry, you are effectively positioning your company as an expert in that field to your competitors, customers, and other publications.

It’s also useful as a way of connecting with potential customers for your products or services by appearing in publications that they will be visiting for inspiration or advice.

For example, a building supplies company could provide a comment on how to insulate a loft. This is a product that they sell, so the comment is an indirect way of promoting their product offering. If a potential customer enters a search query about how to insulate their loft, they may be taken to the article and find the company thanks to the expert quote.

Can it help SEO?

In a word, yes. Many online publications will give credit for your commentary or quote in the form of a backlink to your website. This backlink can signal to Google to enhance the trustworthiness of your website in SERPS and direct traffic directly to the page.

Expert commentary as a digital PR tactic also helps to build a healthy and diverse backlink profile, alongside other strategies such as content marketing campaigns, product PR, and reactive campaigns.

If you’d like help in how to build your brand’s backlink profile, get in touch with us today.