PR Daily’s 2018 Digital PR and Social Media Awards
The world of social media and digital communication is changing faster than ever. How do you stay ahead of the pack? We’re in search of the best and brightest minds in the industry.
PR Daily’s 2018 Digital PR and Social Media Awards will recognize digital natives and social media savants who capitalize on fleeting trends and know how to make them stick. We want to shine a light on the campaigns and projects that brought your organization or client attention on multiple platforms.
Submit the work that put your PR prowess on the map, and prove that you’re an expert in the field.
Check out categories covering such topics as digital and social media activity, use of digital and social media, campaigns, use of specific social media platforms and, of course, our grand prize categories.
See a full list of categories and eligibility requirements, and read how to enter below.
Eligibility Requirements
These awards are open to in-house, agency and independent communication practitioners in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. Enter your work or the work of your organization, or submit entries on behalf of a client.
Organizations from around the world are welcome to enter; however, entries must be submitted in English.
This year’s program is open to any work in digital media and digital public relations executed from Jan. 1, 2017 through Jan. 10, 2018.
Contact Justine Figueroa to find the perfect category for your campaign or project. You can reach her at 312-960-4304 or justinef@ragan.com.
Deadlines/Entry Fees
Early Bird Deadline: February 14, 2018
(Save $50 per entry!)
Late Submission Deadline: April 25, 2018
- Main category entry pricing: $295 per entry
- Grand Prize category entry pricing: $395 per entry
A late fee of $100 per entry will added to all entries received after 11:59 p.m. Central time, March 2.
Early-bird submissions must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central time on Feb. 14 to receive the $50 discount.
Please note: Entry fees are nonrefundable.
W-9 Form / Tax ID Number Request
Prizes
Each category winner will receive:
- A featured write-up in a Special Edition of Ragan.com
- An elegant trophy
- One complimentary registration to any Ragan event, webcast or conference within 12 months of winning
- Publicity for your campaign or project and organization through a Twitter chat guest spot or Facebook Live interview
The winners of the Grand Prize categories also will receive a one-year membership to Ragan Training—a premium online training library featuring hundreds of hours of the very best content from Ragan events. Find out more about the site here: http://ragantraining.com/.
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Digital & Social Media Activity
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Blog
Tell us why your blog is a destination for your target audience. Why does your content provide the most relevant information? How do you keep readers coming back for more? Do you use visuals to entice your audience? Do you provide practical facts and tips? Include statistical analysis or metrics and links to at least three blog posts you’ve created for your organization or client.
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Contest or Game
You created an online contest or game to promote your brand. What prize, what service did you offer the winner? Was this for an internal or external audience? Show us how you promoted this across platforms to maximize your reach. Include metrics which highlight the number of participants or contestants. How did that increase brand loyalty or awareness?
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Digital Product or Service Launch
Share your strategy for launching your product or service digitally. What platforms did you employ? What was your marketing plan? What were your goals and expectations and how did they match up with the results? Imaginative, daring, risk-taking concepts count the most here.
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Live Chat, Stream or Online Hangout
Tell us how you engaged an unpredictable audience. Did start a Twitter chat or a Facebook, Instagram or Periscope Live stream? Was a different medium the secret to your success? Did you generate conversation in response to a crisis or were you crowdsourcing ideas from your audience? Show us those threads and streams! We want to see real ideas, real substance, real debate. One-time chats and regular discussions are both eligible.
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Microsite or Custom Website
We’re looking for the cleanest, most valuable websites out there. Was your website created with a single purpose or does it serve as a hub that represents your entire organization? How does it beat your competition’s web sites in design, organization, user experience and value? What features did you add to give it a unique, premium look and feel? Tell us the results you produced.
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Mobile App
You met your audience where they are – on their phones. How did you make your mobile app a brand experience? Tell us how you used mobile technology to provide or promote a service to your audience. Did you use your mobile app to engage and inform them? Tell us about your mobile content, design and features. Show us why your mobile app has users reaching for their phones—on their way to work, at work and after work.
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Podcast
You inspired an audience to listen up. Your podcast tells your brand’s story and publicizes your organization. What does your podcast intend to teach or share? Tell us about your expectations and how they matched up with your listener count. How do you engage and incentivize your listeners on multiple platforms? Share your strategy for generating a continuous conversation.
Use of Digital PR & Social Media for…
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Brand Awareness
Explain how you used to social media platforms or digital PR to create a community of loyal customers. How did you turn followers into advocates for your brand? Tell us your goals, strategy and results. We want to see your flawless creative execution and the data to back it up.
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Cause Advocacy
Tell us about a cause that was underrepresented in the media. How did you use digital communication to advocate for an important social issue? How did you get your employees enthusiastically on-board? Did it help you raise money, awareness or inspire others to get involved?
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Community Engagement
You tapped into your company, client or agencies roots to discover local tastemakers, influencers and leaders. How did you engage a community of people and help them develop an affinity for your organization? Tell us how you engaged a network of people using social and digital media. Please include posts, examples of interactions and statistics from your measurement.
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Content Marketing/Brand Journalism
How did you develop a content strategy that expressed your organization’s expertise? Did you develop an online newsroom with up-to-the-minute updates and fresh takes on industry news? Tell us how you transferred this new stream of interesting stories to social media. Include examples and metrics.
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*NEW!* Crisis Communication or Reputation Management
Communicating effectively during a crisis is essential. How did you use social media or other digital platforms to share an honest and transparent message? Why was this effective and what were the results?
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*NEW!* Customer Care
Social media allows customers to raise red flags about product or service issues incredibly quickly. How has your customer care program helped alleviate issues that your customers have faced with your organization? Tell us why you implemented a customer service element on social media and how it has benefited your business and your audience?
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Event Promotion
Share your secrets for promoting an event that everyone wants to attend. How did you build buzz and brand awareness using social media, video or contests to excite attendees? We want to know your event hashtag, attendee numbers and post-event results.
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Employee Engagement and Recruitment
How did you use digital PR and social media to give your internal culture a makeover? Tell us how social media increased collaboration, encouraged new business ideas or bolstered recruitment efforts. Did your internal site redesign increase cooperation? Did your video or social media shine a light on what makes your company culture unique? Tell us digital PR and social media made jobs in your organization so attractive. We want to know how you engaged, retained and recruited employees.
Campaigns
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Email Marketing Campaign
How did you re-imagine your email marketing strategy to get dramatic results? Did you promote a product, event or brand? What made it successful? We want to see a powerful, memorable, well-designed email that got the job done far beyond your expectations. Show us how you triumphed with the most common form of digital communication.
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Healthcare Marketing Campaign
How did you illustrate the talent and tirelessness of the healthcare marketing pros in your organization? Did you publish stories about miracle patients? Did you raise awareness about community health issues? Tell us how you used digital media to engage prospective patients and brand your healthcare organization’s practice in a field or discipline of medicine as one of the most trusted in your city, state, or region.
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*NEW!* Influencer Campaign
How did you work with digital influencers to increase brand awareness within your target audience? Tell us your strategy for finding the right tastemakers to represent your brand. What content did you collaborate on and what were the results?
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Marketing Campaign
We’re seeking marketing campaigns with strong digital elements. How did you make your brand or product’s presence known in the over-saturated online world ? Send us the results of your killer online marketing campaign. The goals of your campaign should be clearly stated and measures of success must be included.
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Media Relations Campaign
Tell us how you collaborated with journalists and storytellers to get your brand’s message out there. Did you work with influencers, subject matter experts or academics to reach a larger audience? Did you earn media placement in a newspaper or magazine? How did you make an extra push to establish relationships with journalists? Start with the goals of your campaign and how you achieved them.
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Multi-channel Campaign
We want to see campaigns that performed well across several platforms. Why was your project best suited for a more than one channel? Tell us your plan and which mediums made the most sense for your work. How did you alter your message for different platforms? How did it reach a broader audience?
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PR Campaign
How did you use digital PR to inform audiences about your product or service? What were your campaign goals? Did it solve a problem or launch a new product? Tell us about your intended audience, your creative vision, strategy, execution and results.
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Social Media Campaign
You wanted to engage a specific audience, so you found them where they spend most of their time – on social media. Who did you target and what platforms do they use? Was this a multi-channel campaign? Did you use video, text or photos to entice your desired audience? Tell us your plan, show us your content and give us data to back up your success.
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Specialty Campaign
Did you launch a campaign aimed at a consumer group last year? How did your custom-made message strike a chord in that audience? Who did you reach? French bulldog owners in the Pacific Northwest? Yoga instructors? People named Karen? Tell us how you reached your ideal consumers, and how you tailored a message just for them.
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Viral Campaign
How did your inspired concept go viral and get noticed by the entire company, Web or world? Tell us how your digital campaign caught fire. If you really did go viral, either internally, nationally or globally, our readers will want to know every detail of your viral secret.
Use of…
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Facebook
How did you make use of the world’s largest social network for your client or organization? Tell us your strategy for using Facebook to share your message and create an engaged community. How does your Facebook page enhance your PR and marketing strategy? Entries for this category do not need to focus on a specific campaign.
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Instagram
Your organization’s Instagram account speaks volumes about your brand’s aesthetic and who its customers are. How did you make yours stand out? Did you use Instagram to display and sell products or to share an inside look at day-to-day operations? What was your special Instagram strategy and what kind of results have you seen? We want to know how you used this popular visual platform to connect with your consumers.
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*NEW!* Messaging Platform or Chatbot
You used a chatbot or messaging platform to reach your audience at all times. Why was an automated chatbot the right channel for meeting your goals? Did you use it for customer service or to send promotional messages? What platform did you use? We want to see examples and results.
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Snapchat
You went on Snapchat to engage with your younger audiences in real-time. Did your strategy include product demos, influencer takeovers, day-in-the-life employee profiles? How did your strategy help to increase brand awareness and followers on other accounts? Include screenshots of Snaps, saved videos and metrics.
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Twitter
Do you use Twitter to build a following for your client or organization, handle a crisis or deliver news? How do your tweets fit into your PR and marketing strategy? How do you use Twitter to interact with customers in real time? Entries for this category need not focus on a campaign. We want to see your most interactive, inviting Twitter accounts.
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Video
How did you use video to enhance your PR? Tell us your vision for video and your execution. Did you share it on Instagram, on Youtube, in emails or at a live event?Were you seeking increased brand awareness or did you want to inspire action? Give us the details on how it increased engagement on your site or social platforms.
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Visual Design
How did you take graphics from mere illustration of a text to powerful, self-contained storytelling? What important message did you communicate? We want to see your best infographics, slide decks, photos, data visualization, web, mobile and social media content design. What was your goal? What were the results?
Grand Prize
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Digital PR Campaign of the Year
Your campaign demonstrated communications expertise, creativity and a distinct point-of-view. You created a digital campaign that delighted your audience and startled your competition. Tell us about it. Outline your goals, strategy, execution, and results. The Campaign of the Year Award will honor the communicator, department or agency whose campaign caused a stir. Your concept must be groundbreaking. your implementation inventive, unexpected and even daring.
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Social Media Campaign of the Year
We want to know how you brought all the pieces together into your best social media campaign. The grand prize winner will go to an exceptional campaign that was stunningly executed on two or more platforms. Our judges will look for creativity, innovation, sound communication and, of course, data and metrics.
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How To Enter
On the entry form, be sure to include a thorough synopsis explaining the purpose and scope of your project. We ask that the synopsis be at least 1,000 words (max: 1,250 words) and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):
- Goals
- Strategy and tactics
- Execution
- Evaluation: success, results or ROI
Be sure to follow the guidelines laid out in the category descriptions, as the judges will look for those elements when they select the winners.
You will be able to upload up to five additional documents to your submission. We encourage you to include press releases, design concepts, videos, analytics, testimonials and anything else you feel will give us a better sense of your project. Proprietary or internal information can also be attached and will not be shared with the public.
Supporting documents that can't be uploaded to the system should be mailed to:
Justine Figueroa
Ragan Communications
316 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 400
Chicago, IL 60601
Enter Online
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FAQs
Are the awards open to organizations outside the United States?
Yes. Entries may be submitted by organization from around the world. The only requirement is that entries be submitted in English.
May an organization or nominator enter more than one entry?
Yes. Enter as many categories as you like. One story, video, design, etc. may also be entered in multiple categories if it meets the criteria. Each entry and each category will require a separate entry fee.
Will you return my entry materials?
No.
Who judges the entries?
Our judges include the editorial staff of Ragan.com, PR Daily.com, and Health Care Communication News.
When and where will the winners be announced?
We try to announce a list of finalists six to eight weeks after the close of the program. The announcement of the winners comes about three to four weeks after the announcement of the finalists. Each of these announcements will be made with a headline on our website, in our daily email newsletter, and on our social media platforms. Emails will be sent to all the entrants to notify them of these announcements.
Will there be an awards luncheon or live ceremony?
There is no live event associated with this program.
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Additional Questions
If you have any questions about the program or problems submitting your entry, please call Justine Figueroa at 312-960-4304 or email her at
justinef@ragan.com.
Sponsorship Opportunities
If you are interested in sponsoring one of Ragan Communications’ award programs, contact Sponsorship@ragan.com to learn more about the benefits of award sponsorship.
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Enter Online