Shout Bravo headed to BrightonSEO this April: here’s what we learned!

It’s that time of year again, where all of us in the SEO sphere head down to the coast to enjoy BrightonSEO – a long-running conference that specialises in search-engine optimisation and marketing – that took place between the 19th and the 21st of April 2023.

 

While we at Shout Bravo are no stranger to BrightonSEO, our PR outreach team members Cara and Sam attended this April for the first time, and have put together their favourite talks from this year’s Online PR Show, and BrightonSEO overall.

 

Now, without further ado, let’s get into our favourite parts of this April’s BrightonSEO talks!

 

How to use audio & video to level up your content strategy

Azeem Ahmad

 

This was a really interesting talk from Azeem, discussing the benefits of using audio and video in campaigns and how they can increase coverage significantly. Social media platforms, such as TikTok, alongside podcasts are ideal for this.

 

It was really thought-provoking to learn how the use of video content can also breathe new life into older campaigns, repurposing information and data and making them more interesting, interactive and engaging for a new audience.

PR newsjacking: dos, don’ts, highs, and lows 

Uday Radia

 

Working for a PR agency, we do have to react to the news on many occasions. So, it was good to hear from Uday about how they react to breaking news and the tools used to track opportunities.

 

Uday talked about the importance of a quick turnaround for stories, and how having a pre-approved sign-off process and making sure your contacts are as up-to-date as possible seems the best way to approach this.

 

Uday also talked about the importance of being prepared and looking at the story from a different angle for our clients, thinking about stories having different angles in mind to use.

Using the 30-30-3 rule for reactive success

Clara Kelly

 

Clara’s talk broke down the 30-30-3 rule, which is as follows:

• 30 seconds to cover breaking news.
• 30 minutes to write stories on breaking news.
• 3 times to cover a really topical news story using different angles.

Clara’s talk made us think about our campaign from a journalist’s perspective, which we found really useful. She talked about how important it is to know your target market by spending a good amount of time doing research, understanding the news cycle and what are the best times to pitch.

Clara talked about how including as much information as possible limits journalists coming back with questions, rather than starting on putting a piece together. I thought this was interesting, as it can sometimes feel as though we may bombard journalists with information. But, on reflection, the more information the better from a journalist’s point of view.

 

Going global: where do we all go wrong?

Daniele Saccardi

 

Daniele’s talk was about publishing and outreaching campaigns on an international level, which is especially relevant to our agency right now, as we have recently launched a series of campaigns that have been translated for international audiences.

 

Daniele talked about the importance of the content of international campaigns, and how the dialect, content, and terminology have to be specific to each individual country – which makes total sense, and was the key takeaway for us from Daniele’s talk.

TikTok for search marketing

Rachel Pearson

 

TikTok was a recurring theme at this year’s BrightonSEO, and is something that we were keen to learn more about from Rachel.

 

Rachel talked about how TikTok is being used more as a research platform, and that people retain more information from videos than they do from text. She also emphasised that the sound quality of videos created for TikTok is very important to viewers.

 

Something that we hadn’t thought about before Rachel’s talk was that TikTok prefers limited amounts of hashtags – and, as this is the case, keyword research prior to uploading content is extremely important. By using audience tools, we can look at what target audiences are searching for and use the appropriate hashtags sparingly.

Showing the value of digital PR beyond links and coverage

Isa Lavahun

 

Isa’s talk looked at how difficult it is now for PRs, mostly due to all of the different rankings that are now in place on Google. Isa discussed how it is so important to make sure that our content is good quality, relevant, diverse, and shows authority.

 

One of the things that stood out for us in this talk was Isa saying ‘Work smart to identify link opportunities your competitors have but you don’t’ This has resonated with us, as we have all the tools we need to do this available to us and we should use them more by looking into trends, metrics, and measurement tools and software.

 

Her talk also interestingly covered an emphasis on the importance of link-building and how best to communicate to clients and stakeholders the significance and value of a link, so that they understand what exactly they are paying for with their marketing budgets.

Do product page links = impact? What I learned from building 2,000 in a year

Lauren Henley

 

Lauren discussed how High-quality links with a high DA/DR and low spam score are better than many lower-quality links, which is something that we are already careful of at Shout Bravo.

 

A media list with a small, well-researched high DA/DR publication list can be much more relevant than a media list with hundreds of poor ones.

 

Lauren talked about how generating helpful content for consumers encourages people to engage with your clients. To do this, the content must be relevant and try to focus on niches. This is something that we are really keen on

 

Lauren also mentioned to pitch clients as experts in their field, and add value and authenticity to campaigns. We have found this to be really popular for some of our clients too, so it was positive to see this technique being used by others with equally successful results.

To conclude

 

And with that, we have wrapped up our favourite talks from this April’s BrightonSEO conference. It was great to see so many insightful speakers at this year’s Online PR Show and BrightonSEO, and all speakers were brilliant as always.

 

Our team members took so much away from the conference that we will definitely put into practice within our own outreach activities, and we can’t wait to learn even more at the next conference!