Remember when newspapers and fortnightly magazines were all there was to ensure public outreach? Irrespective of whether you are a company, or an individual looking to let yourself known, chances are that you were trying to make it to newspaper headlines. Well, that’s no longer the case — significantly since social media completely changed the game.

When social media platforms became the hotbed of public activities, it marked a milestone for Public Relations. Digital PR, with all its intricacies, soon followed suit to become the sought-after version to be utilized by companies or individuals to become the talking point of the masses. The answer to what is digital PR has become simple today, and the meaning of using digital PR by brands & individuals has led to fulfilling pre-determined goals, making inroads to ensuring clearer brand identity and resolution — directly impacting the conversion rates than previously imagined. 

In the following blog, we will look to understand what is digital PR and the meaning of digital PR as a whole, supporting arguments with relevant case studies to help you understand the importance, tactics and measurement.

What is Digital PR?

In a nutshell, the term digital PR refers to digital public relations — a predetermined set of marketing funnels or tactics that is undertaken to enhance brand identity, resolution, and awareness through online mediums. These strategies are vastly different to those of traditional PR strategies where the marketing funnel is aimed at offline mediums, i.e. newspapers, magazines and others.

Through digital PR, the goal remains to enhance the media visibility of brands organically, or paid mediums. This helps to create robust thought leadership for the brands’ spokespersons, garnering ample credibility that leads to enhanced social mentions organic traffic on brand websites and better organic SEO. 

However, a prevalent misconception regarding digital PR is that this can be used to enhance sales. However, it is imperative to understand that PR - digital or traditional, is primarily used to garner credibility. While sales could be an output of this, it is usually garnered by months or years of continuous PR and should not be used primarily for driving sales. 

Digital PR strategies align closely with digital marketing strategies, leading to better visibility in leading search engines like Google, helping the brands to differentiate themselves from peers and competitors. 

But then, why is Digital PR important?

If we understand what digital PR is and what can be expected from it, the question arises whether it is important for brand building. To understand this, we must first recognize the fact that brand building, especially in a digital world, has become spontaneous at best. Reputation, the foremost pillar of PR and branding, is made and broken every day in the digital domain — where users are the catalyst that drives the change. Thousands of favourable narratives are built every day digitally, whereas it is also broken every day — some with reason and others, without. The dynamics involved in this remain in constant flux, making digital PR important for so many.

In simpler words, the digital domain is tricky. The benefits of digital PR not only involve brand building or reputation building but also sustaining the momentum to ensure continued media presence. It is not about why use digital PR when social media marketing seems to be the obvious route to visibility. The primary distinguishing factor between digital PR and social media marketing is simple, through social media marketing or digital marketing, brands can reach out to the masses to say they are the best. Meanwhile, digital PR helps them with increased media placements — defining why they are the best. 

The fine line between self-marketing and reviews defines the lines between PR and marketing, ensuring credibility, continued trust and crisis management if important. The benefits of digital PR extend beyond your everyday inflated balloon of different brands saying they are the best, with meaningful and authentic reviews by credible sources like media platforms — showcasing why use digital PR as a catalyst of continued growth. 

How does digital PR work?

A comprehensive set of tools are used to achieve success in digital PR. Depending on requirements, digital PR can take two very distinct routes — organic and paid. Both of these verticals are used for different outcomes and by different tools and can be used simultaneously depending on the campaign requirements.

To begin with, the organic approach includes tools such as Relationship Building Meetings (RBM), Brand / Spokesperson Profiling, Authored Articles, Press Releases, Industry Stories, New-age Media initiatives such as Podcasts, awards, speakerships, seminars & webinars and many more. While different tools are used in this approach, the outcome funnel remains the same — digital mediums like popular social media platforms, Google and different search engines. 

In the organic approach, PR professionals begin with ideating a comprehensive strategy aligning with brand requirements through deep research. In the next step, the strategy is followed to disseminate brand messaging through positive media placements, through different types of stories like profilings, or authored articles. This is done through strategic outreach to relevant stakeholders, primarily journalists, to ensure meaningful media placements that cater to millions of potential target audiences. 

How to measure the impact of Digital PR?

There are two ways of measuring the performance of your digital PR campaigns. First, you adopt an organic approach where you check the imprints on Google on particular keywords such as brand name, spokesperson name or any particular keyword that you have been building up to. However, the tentative data remains not definitive in this approach, leading to the usage of a more sophisticated tech-oriented approach that involves additional expenses.

In the tech-integrated approach, subscriptions can be made to receive qualitative or quantitative reports of media footprints across a target location, regionally, nationally or internationally. This will include imprints on digital mediums, across media platforms, blog posts, audio-visual platforms like YouTube or Instagram, or print media on a monthly or quarterly basis. 

Examples of Digital PR campaigns

Digital PR campaigns come in all different shapes and sizes! Over the years, many digital PR campaigns have gained prominence because of their impact on businesses, leading to widespread attention and brand identity. We are listing some brief case studies below to provide a better understanding of modern-day digital PR campaigns.

• Desh Ka Trucks by Tata Motors - Tata Motors is synonymous with India’s bid to become self-reliant in terms of automobiles in the world. On Indian roads, the majority of the trucks available are from the garages of Tata. The automotive giant rolled over one of the most significant digital PR campaigns in 2022 — Desh ka Trucks, and boy, it struck the chord!

This particular campaign was run through all digital media channels, even through advertisement mediums. This campaign integrated influencer marketing at a premium, while also inducting aspects like narrative building and storytelling to showcase the continued brilliance and technological excellence of Tata Trucks’ Prime, Signa and Ultra variants. The prime differentiator of the PR campaign was its capability to align with what its end users looked for — technological brilliance through features, cost-savings through fuel efficiency, connectivity and productivity aspects — all aspects that aligned Tata Trucks with drivers around the country.

The campaign was received unprecedentedly well by the Indian audience, leading to the brand announcing an extension of 5 parts that showcased the features, safety, productivity and excellence of Tata commercial vehicles. For impact, Tata Trucks soon registered significant sales in the following months, positioning it as one of the largest stakeholders in the Indian commercial vehicle segment.

• What The Falooda by Swiggy - Food Delivery seems to be one of the most demanding jobs in the world right now, and whatever the cause, leads to many unhappy customers. Indian food delivery startup, Swiggy’s What The Falooda campaign aimed to highlight the challenges of the space for delivery partners and employees at the backend in a humorous tone in 2020, leading it to become the talk of the town with ease. The campaign showcased professionals working at customer care, and their daily working lives with a storytelling theme, with a patch of humour. 

The campaign received astounding support from all across the internet and soon became a sensation that visibly improved user attitudes towards food delivery. Across Google, Meta, X and everywhere else, the campaign left people wondering about what was the first deep dive into the lives and difficulties of customer care executives and delivery partners.

The Indian and international media picked up the campaign quickly, leading to Swiggy being highlighted in the national and international media as one of the most innovative and positive workplaces for employees in 2020. This gave Swiggy’s brand resolution an entirely fresh approach, positioning the brand as one of the most recognizable brands in India.

Looking Back…

Digital PR is transforming every day, and brands looking to scale up on the credibility aspect must look to integrate it as one of the mainstays of their marketing budget. However, it is imperative for brands to have a predetermined resolution on what they are looking for from digital PR because it aligns closely with the ideation & strategizing aspects. It is also important to understand that different marketing funnels exist for very different aspects, and integrating digital PR could be one of the ways to garner massive credibility and sustain its positive reputation to create a brand with a distinct identity that its target stakeholders trust wholeheartedly.

At Bridgers, we are always on the lookout for any help in this aspect. Reach out to us through a simple email at info@bridgers.in or a simple call at +91 9905384494 to talk growth!