Five Types of Digital PR

Digital PR is crucial to business success, going beyond traditional press releases to build trust and boost online visibility. Digital PR matters because it drives SEO and organic traffic, builds brand trust, and reaches broader audiences.  

It centres on creating compelling brand stories through campaigns and distributing them to key media outlets to earn coverage and backlinks to a brand’s website. By securing media coverage across online publications, companies influence consumer purchasing decisions before a customer even visits their site!

In this guide, our Junior Marketing Assistant, Jessica Ledger, will explore five key types of Digital PR and answer frequently asked questions to help you navigate the world of Digital PR.

Reactive PR

Reactive PR, also known as newsjacking, involves responding to trending news and topics that align with a client’s expertise or goals. The idea is that news breaks every second, and a news story dies down pretty quickly, so the faster we can jump on a story, the better our chances of riding the popularity wave and pushing out clients relevant to the conversation before the story loses traction. This can be as simple as providing spokesperson comments. 

In order to ‘newsjack’ successfully, you need to have the ability to turn content around as soon as current events unfold. Understanding your client’s market and monitoring the news is essential to staying up to date on trending topics that might be hot for them.  

In a standout reactive Digital PR campaign for The Kid Collective, we capitalised on the buzz surrounding Molly-Mae’s announcement that she was naming her baby Bambi on January 29th. By targeting national, lifestyle, and women’s-interest publications, we pivoted quickly, analysing ONS data to identify the top 10 Disney-inspired baby names. We drafted a press release that same evening and presented it for client sign-off the following morning. Because rapid approval is vital for newsjacking, The Kid Collective’s 7:30 am sign-off let our outreach team begin pitching by 8:00 am.

We conducted this campaign as a brand awareness activity because the brand was relevant to the trending topic, and we knew we could gather insights quickly. 

This campaign resulted in:

• 107 pieces of coverage.
• 84 backlinks to the site.
• +129% uplift in referrals. 

Traffic came from wishlist publications such as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and MSN.

Thought Leadership 

Thought Leadership PR is all about positioning company leaders as recognised experts, the perfect tactic to gain trust from your audience. We know that a good thought leadership piece must go beyond basic knowledge and offer forward-looking industry insights, so building trust is essential. Trust-based PR proves you are offering genuine value without a hard sell, resulting in original and educational content that amplifies your brand’s authority. 

A key point to remember is that journalists are overwhelmed with generic commentary and recycled trends, so they expect fresh angles and unique data. To help with this, thought leadership pieces shouldn’t just cover the news; they should go above and beyond by sharing a vision of where your industry is heading in the next 3-5 years. 

For our client Heald Ltd, we drafted a distinctive data-driven Digital PR campaign to highlight Heald’s Christmas market protection offerings and elevate their online presence. The campaign explores Christmas markets worldwide, presenting a comprehensive ranking that unveils Europe’s Best Christmas Markets. Using credible third-party information, we developed an index that considers factors such as visitor numbers, number of stalls, Tripadvisor rating, opening hours, TikTok views, and search volume. From this, we created a data index highlighting the top 10 out of 50 European Christmas markets. To further bolster the campaign, we created an accompanying graphic mapping the top ten markets. 

Key stats include:

• 67% increase in website referrals,
• 30% increase in average engagement time,
• National and regional press coverage in publications such as Yahoo! News, Manchester World and Scottish Daily Express.

Product PR

Product PR is typically suited to B2C businesses and is most commonly used during major product launches or periods of brand repositioning. Publications plan their features weeks or months in advance, so PR outreach needs to begin well ahead of launch. Pitching offers, exclusives, and early access can be given to key journalists in advance under the condition that they do not publish reviews until the agreed launch date. Sample distribution can also start early, allowing reviewers to experience the product firsthand and for reviews to go live immediately at launch. 

Product PR aims to shape long-term brand perception and generate earned media by sending product ‘samples’ for journalists to review and test, or by offering expert commentary. This is a great way to gain trust, since the content creator is not paid to advertise, audiences generally perceive reviews as genuine. 

That said, unlike advertising, control is much more limited. While you provide product details and press releases, journalists decide how to frame the story, what to include and whether to feature you at all.

Crisis Management 

PR Crisis Management is the process of preparing for and responding to unexpected events that could threaten a company’s reputation. 

Situations that could require this response include Public Safety and Health emergencies, data and security breaches, financial issues, product safety issues or reputational crises. 

The first few hours are critical; you need to assess the situation, gather hard facts quickly to understand the full scope of the problem, and monitor all channels, such as social media and news outlets, to see how the story evolves. 

This type of PR isn’t often needed, but when it is, we would ensure each situation is approached with care and consideration.

Business News

Business News PR announcements are great for celebrating company growth, big milestones, new hires and appointments, big projects a business has been involved in, investments they’ve made, or new product or service launches. This PR stream is a great way for businesses to position themselves as innovators or leaders within their own industry, within business titles or within regional/local titles. 

Good Business News PR relies on clear, real-world relevance and a strong hook that serves the media’s audience by focusing on major impact or industry insights. Pitches should be tailored to what a target publication’s readers need or care about and backed by original data or surveys. 

As part of our PR activity for Conscious Youth, one of our main objectives was to raise awareness of their important work regionally and nationally.

Targeting national, regional, and industry-specific press, we developed a press release on Sarah Ferguson’s (Duchess of York) visit to Conscious Youth’s ‘Conscious Girls’ session in July 2021. In addition to covering key information about the visit, we gathered commentary from Conscious Youth co-founders Serena Johnson and Sophie Simpson on what Sarah Ferguson’s visit meant to them. In total, we secured 11 pieces of coverage and three follow-on links, with standout features including The Yorkshire Press (DA 23), MSN (DA 95), and Examiner Live (DA 78).

How Can Fishtank Help Elevate Your Brand’s Presence Online?

When it comes to your PR strategy, it’s important to explore the best tactics for your organisation, which likely won’t require all of the above. 

At Fishtank, our PR and Communications Services are designed to help tell your brand’s story, support brand building and boost SEO and website visibility in the search engine results pages.

Contact a member of our friendly team to discuss how our PR and Communications Services can elevate your brand.