Digital PR recognizes that the world is changing due to rising internet use. It focuses on building an online presence and managing reputation through tools like search engine optimization, social media, blogging, digital assets and monitoring. Case studies show how Digital PR helped with campaigns like launching a website, raising awareness of services, increasing online sales, crisis management, and making a charity challenge go viral. Digital PR's emphasis on online content, communities and visibility helps spread messages and engage audiences.

1. DIGITAL P.R: Faster connection for better communication
Public Relations in simple words is the practice of managing the communication
between an organization and its publics. P.R can be used to build rapport with
employees, customers, investors, voters, or the general public. Almost any
organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena employs some
level of public relations.
“According to networking giant Cisco, India will have 348 million Internet users
by 2017. Globally, by 2017, Internet users will swell to 3.6 billion, which will be
more than 48% of the world’s projected population of 7.6 billion.”
The statistics above show that most of the stakeholder of any company is becoming
digital-savvy and hence the company needs to have a digital P.R angle in the
management of its communication.
What is Digital P.R?
Digital PR is building presence on the internet and managing online reputation for
brands and businesses. This can be done through various means such as social media,
websites, blogging, and online media coverage. PR practitioners have a number of
different resources at their disposalwhen it comes to building a brand's online
reputation, and that social media forms an important part of this mix. Digital PR
recognizes that the world, and how we digest information, is changing – and this is in
part down to the rising use of the internet. With statistics showing that 36 million
people in UK use Internet on a daily basis, you can reach a vast audience through
online channels, meaning your news can spread further and faster than ever.
Important tools of Digital P.R:
 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:Searchengine is the top method for
finding information online. Keyword optimizing news
content is a key device for digital PR professionals.
News content that is ripe for optimization ranges
from press releases to media coverage to digital assets
such as images or video. Optimizing news content
for relevant and popular phrases can help that content
rank well in the search engines. Improved search visibility helps marketing
efforts; online reputation and it can attract analysts, journalists and bloggers
researching your industry. 72% of P.R. agencies now offer SEO services in
2013 as opposedto the 19% offer in 2009 as stated by PublicRelations
ConsultantAssociation.

2.  SOCIAL MEDIA: According to a new e-Marketer report one in every four
people in the world uses social media. Hence,
understanding social media relations is an important
part of a digital PR effort. The audiences a company is
trying to reach or influence are spending time on and
being influenced by social media. Social participation
in a digital PR program means connecting with and
engaging influential and customers to perpetuate a
positive brand image as well as identifying and
empowering brand ambassadors. Proactive content
optimization of social media content and building relationships with fans helps
dispel negative brand attention and accentuate what’s positive. It is essential to
be open with and useful to social communities and to adhere to both implicit
and explicit ‘social rules’ rather than just dropping links to what you’re
promoting. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the
most common mediums used by companies to communicate. Dominos used the
YouTube channel to deal with the crisis effectively when its employees posted
dirty videos on the social media. In India one of the most famous Social Media
P.R campaigns has been Narendra Modi’s Prime Ministerial campaign in 2014.
 DIGITAL ASSETS:The video, audio, podcasts, images, and many other digital
assets hosted on most company websites represent many opportunities for pull
based PR. Optimizing digital assets with relevant keywords and either
promoting or submitting to vertical search engines like YouTube and Flickr can
provide additional exposure to media that conductonline research as well as
end customers. Company’s own websites are also an important tool as it reflects
upon the company’s image and work. CocaCola Company won the best
website award in the PR Daily’s Digital P.R Award 2013. Online audience
generally refer to the company’s website for any information which they require
and if the website is not updated then it puts the company in a negative light.
 BLOGGING:When done right, a company blog can be an incredible PR asset.
A company blog is an opportunity for a brand to
create and publish its own content to a relevant
online audience of content creators. Well-
optimized and linked blog posts can rank well in
the search engines making them easy to find for
journalists and bloggers researching stories.
Blogger relations is often more successfulwhen the company being pitched has
its own blog to point to. For instance, various online clothing private labels

3. have their own blogs to communicate and disseminate news with their target
audience.
 SEARCH and SOCIAL MEDIAMONITORING:With so many content creators
online, the chance for both negative and positive brand mentions increases
dramatically. Yet many tools exist to help the online PR pro effectively monitor
brand reputation. Companies can set up free alerts using tools like Google
Alerts, Social Mention or Twitter to watch for mentions of their brand name,
competitors’ names, industry news, and important key names. Social media
monitoring data can be used to mine new ideas, keep tabs on competitors,
identify brand ambassadors and address any negative press quickly and directly.
Monitoring search engine rankings of news content can provide important
feedback for news optimization efforts and provide insight into search
traffic effectiveness.
The above-mentioned tools are required for creating the best digital environment in
favor of the company. Currently, the top 10 providers of Digital Public Relations
are:
 Ogilvy Public Relations
 Affect, New York
 Be Social PR, San Diego
 451 Marketing, Boston
 Beautiful Planning, New York
 Miller PR, L.A
 Blast, Austin
 Roar Media, Florida
 Weber Shandwick, Chicago
 Lewis PR, Boston (source:
www.10BestPR.com)
BEST DIGITAL P.R WORKS:
Campaign 1:In 2007, Ogilvy PR used digital media to launch brand’s new French
website for generating positive word-of-mouth
among online influencers. They also got 40
French bloggers to write for the website provide
feedback that could be integrated before the
launch of the website. “326 emails exchanges,
countless phone calls, and 28 informal interviews

4. later, we received a flood of positive feedback, including 35 posts in highly influential
blogs featuring 100% positive and enthusiastic coverage of the site”
Campaign 2:Life can get messy,
and some messes, spills, and stains
aren’t that easy to clean up without
a little bleach. That was the
message behind Ketchum’s
campaign for The Clorox Company:
“Bleachable Moments,” designed to
raise awareness of Clorox Bleach among younger consumers. The campaign was a
success—and it won Ketchum Best Digital PR Campaign for the Consumer sectorin
PR Daily’s 2013 Digital PR Awards.
Campaign 3:Thenonprofit Explore Mars hired Phillips to get the world talking again
about putting men on Mars. The launch of
GetCurious.com on July 23, 2012—two weeks
before the real landing on Mars coincided with the
start of Phillips’ “Get Curious” publicity drive.
GetCurious.com featured a “countdownto landing”
clock, daily briefs on NASA MSL (Mars Science
Lab) mission updates, videos provided by NASA,
and a poll that asked visitors for their opinion on
human missions to Mars. Phillips’ analytics for the July 23-August 8, 2012 period
showed: More than 182, 600 site views for GetCurious.com.

5. Campaign 4
Company: Face Place, skin care clinic in Los Angeles
Campaign: Twitter hash tag campaign in honor of Mother’s Day.
Brand Objective: Highlight user-generated content with a fun approach and build
awareness around the Face Place services and products using ” social media and
influencers.”
Execution: The PR Agency made sure that the hash tag was included in the title of
the press release. This way, when the press release was posted to twitter, the hash
tag was activated, which made it easy for the agency to see who aggregated the
press release. Along with Face Place Twitter followers, the campaign was also
shared with various beauty bloggers inviting them to share their tips using the hash
tag.
How Digital PR helped this campaign?
Use of social media platform, twitter, helped Face Place to initiate positive
interactions with it’s customers and also with influential online personalities like
beauty bloggers who created enough buzz among online communities about the
brand and it’s offerings. The digital press release also generated a lot of coverage

6. as it was picked up by a lot of online sources, resulting in the campaign’s success.
Campaign 5
Company: Southwest Airlines
Campaign Objective: To increase the sales using Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) tools and online press release with hotlinks.
Execution: The Public Relations team used online tools such as Wordtracker.com
and Overture's bidding research tool to find out what terms consumers tend to
search for. While 12,000 searches were conducted for "cheap airline tickets" on an
average day, more than 51,000 searches were conducted for the term “cheap
airfare.”
Two of the terms that were most popular were Southwest and Southwest Airlines.
The team wrote a standard press release, seamlessly including specific search
terms (such as "cheap airfare") in the headline and several times in the bodycopy,
especially in the first paragraph.
Many online newsreaders don'tscroll all the way to the bottom of the press release
to find a clickable link or responsenumber, thus Southwest made it easier for them

7. by routinely including a hotlink at the end of the first paragraph of each optimized
press release.
These unique links were trackable, so the PR team could tell how many people
clicked on them and what actions they took on the site (including purchasing).
Southwest used their standard wire services, such as PR Newswire or Business
Wire, to send out the tweaked releases.
How Digital PR helped this campaign?
Southwest was able to directly track more than $1.5 million in online ticket sales to
optimized press releases. Since the marketing release about low fares was the only
optimized release, it showed up above the rest at the very top of results. Since top
links are 50-150% more likely to be clicked on than #2 links are, the marketing
release was more widely read and acted upon.
Campaign 6
Company: Domino’s Pizza
Campaign: Manage a viral video nightmare (Crisis Management)
Challenge: Domino's Pizza corporate office received a notice from
Consumerist.com for a video in which, two Domino's store employees were seen
joking around as they contaminated customer food orders with unsanitary stunts
such as sticking cheese up their noses before adding it to a customer's sandwich. It
was a nightmare for Domino's as over the past 49 years, the company has built a

8. reputation as a trusted doorstep delivery business. Domino's learnt of the video
after it had been posted to YouTube and several other sites.
How Digital PR helped in Crisis Management?
The company's PR team immediately contacted YouTube for the video to be
removed. The company responded with a posted statement on its website and by
entering the conversation on Twitter and directing users to that post on its site.
Three days after the original incident, Domino's posted its own video to YouTube
which used no script, featuring company president Patrick Doyle addressing the
issue, calmly and sincerely venting his anger and reiterating how sacred the
company holds its customers' trust. The company then posted links to its video on
Twitter and on its Facebook page wall.
This propelled the story into mainstream global media and the company reckoned
60 million media impressions. It was fortunate for Domino's that it already had a
PR team in place who used social media to respond as needed.
Campaign 7
Campaign: ALS’ Ice Bucket Challenge
Challenge: Charity ALS started a small-scale Internet challenge, which aimed to

9. support those afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS (commonly
known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), a motor neurone disease that affects around 5,000
people in the UK.
Pete Frates, a baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS two years ago, started
the ‘Ice Bucket challenge’. The challenge works with a participant (either a
volunteer or someone who has been challenged) films himself dumping a bucket of
ice water on his head. The dunkee then challenges a friend to do the same in the
name of ALS, within 24 hours, and/or donate to the cause.
How Digital PR helped the campaign?
This campaign went VIRAL with 2.4 million ice bucket-related videos posted on
Facebook, and 3.7 million videos uploaded on image sharing website Instagram
with the hashtags #ALSicebucketchallenge and #icebucketchallenge. The ALS
Association website had 4.5 billion visits and the ice bucket challenge had
4,483,726 Twitter mentions.
Not only was this PR Campaign successful in raising $ 70.2 million for the cause
but also in spreading awareness about this disease ALS and the non-profit
organization. What got this campaign even more mileage was that it could garner
the participation of well-known celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos,
Barack Obama and Bill Gates among the many.
This PR Campaign succeeded due to building fan engagement, using celebrities
and athletes as multipliers, using multi-platform strategy and connecting the
sentiments of the public with a noble cause.
As seen in the case studies above, Digital PR lays emphasis on building branded
content, social communities and digital media and blogger relations, having
content partnerships and online visibility, maintaining relationships with
influencers, evangelists and brand ambassadors, creating visual content,
monitoring conversations online and protecting the image and reputation on social
media channels.