People are spending more time than ever online, which means standing out in the digital realm has never been more difficult.

Not for you and your team, though.

PR Daily’s Digital Marketing & Social Media Awards will recognize the captivating campaigns and content that earned attention from busy—often overwhelmed—audiences.

This Awards programs celebrates creativity in connecting with consumers, employees and stakeholders online. This is your opportunity to showcase your digital prowess that led to success for your organization or clients.

You and your team have worked hard this past year. Enter PR Daily’s Digital Marketing & Social Media Awards for your opportunity to earn the recognition you deserve!

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, and vendors, in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. Enter your work, the work of your organization or submit entries on behalf of your client.

Companies from around the world are welcome to enter as long as the entry is submitted in English.

Contact Brendan Gannon to find the perfect category for your campaign or project. You can reach him at 312-960-4407 or brendang@ragan.com

This year’s program is open to any work executed between Jan. 1, 2020, and Jan. 22, 2021, inclusive.

Recognition

Each category winner will receive:

An elegant trophy: Display this shiny trophy for all to see. Go ahead, you've earned it.

Editorial & Social Media Coverage: You’ll be featured on Ragan’s web sites Ragan.com and PRDaily.com, on our social platforms and in our eletters, reaching more than 250,000 communicators and marketers.

Marketing & PR: Leverage your win in your marketing materials, press releases and other messaging.

Digital Badge: Add the Winners badge to your email signature and your web site.

Press release: We’ll provide you with a quote for your press release plus we’ll post your organization’s award release on our site to boost recognition.

CATEGORIES

CAMPAIGNS AND CATEGORIES

Annual Report

It’s difficult to deliver essential information while simultaneously conveying what makes your organization amazing—but you captured the essence of your organization in your annual report. What story did your report tell? We want to hear it.

Augmented/Virtual Reality

You brought new meaning to the “try it before you buy it” mantra. Let us know why an immersive experience was the best way to engage your audience, and share your success.

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.

Brand Awareness

Explain how you used to social media platforms or digital marketing 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.

Cause Marketing/CSR

Tell us about a cause that was underrepresented. 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?

Community Engagement

You tapped into your company, client or agency’s 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.

Content Marketing

How did you developed content that expressed your organization’s expertise? Tell us how you delivered this stream of interesting stories. What channels were best suited to your content? What were the goals and results? Tell us about your engaging content and be sure to include examples and metrics.

Contest or Game

You created an online contest or game to promote your brand. What prize or 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?

Crisis Management

Communicating effectively during a crisis is essential—and this past year has not been lacking in the crisis department. 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?

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.

Email Newsletter

Inboxes are infiltrated daily by messaging from numerous outside sources. How did you keep your newsletter from being dragged immediately into the digital dumpster? We want to hear about it. Share metrics and other pertinent information.

Employee Engagement

Tell us how your digital efforts increased workplace collaboration and encouraged new business ideas. Did you bolster internal collaboration through digital channels or teams while much of your workforce was working from home? Did your internal site redesign increase cooperation? We want to know how you engaged employees through digital channels and achieved business results.

Event Promotion

Share your secrets for promoting an event that everyone wants to attend—live or online. 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.

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.

Healthcare Marketing Campaign

Healthcare communications was profoundly important this past year. How did you illustrate the talent and tirelessness of the healthcare marketing pros in your organization? 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.

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?

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.

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are an opportunity for your brand to show personality and share longer form content. How did you use Instagram Stories to enhance your social media presence this year? Did you create custom GIFs, use special templates or post videos to IGTV? Share your strategy and results.

Interactive Content

You cut through the noise and kept audiences engaged with your interactive content. This created a more personalized experience and provided value to your audience—and your organization or client. What content did you use? What were the overall goals? Share with us how your tailored experience delivered incredible results.

Intranet

All too often, organizations’ internal hubs become digital wastelands where information goes to die. This wasn’t the case for yours. Tell us how you made your intranet an essential, engaging destination for employees.

LinkedIn

We want to hear how you used the premier professional networking site to deliver impressive campaigns, projects and initiatives. Was your marketing campaign incredibly successful on the platform? Was this the perfect channel for delivering your organization’s content? Did your efforts help attract and retain the industry’s top talent? We want to hear all about it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Most Engaged Brand

You dove right into the online conversation and stayed in tune with your audience. How did you stay engaged with your audience? What innovative tactics or campaigns did you implement to make sure your finger was on the pulse? Share goals, strategy and results.

Multichannel 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?

Online Community

Were you instrumental in creating a digital destination where like-minded people could connect? Did you help your employees stay connected during WFH? How did you foster an online community that users loved? What did you do to keep up engagement? This could be for an internal or external audience.

Online Newsroom/Brand Journalism

Did you develop an online newsroom with up-to-the-minute updates and fresh takes on industry news? Tell us what makes yours the go-to digital newsroom for people in your industry. Include examples and metrics.

Paid Social Media Campaign

Personalized Marketing Campaign

Digging into the data lets you identify what audiences really want to see. Generic content won’t captivate busy audiences, so you went with a more personal touch. Tell us how.

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.

Public Affairs Campaign

Your work built and maintained your organization’s or client’s reputation and influenced public policy. Tell us how you used digital channels to achieve success.

Public Relations 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.

Recruitment

How did you use digital PR and social media to give your internal culture a makeover? Tell us how digital and social media increased bolstered recruitment efforts. Did your video or social media shine a light on what makes your culture unique? Tell us how digital marketing and social media made jobs in your organization so attractive.

SEO Campaign

Social Listening and Real-Time Response

In order to understand your audience, you have to listen to it. Tell us about your social listening strategy and how you’ve been able to use that information to engage in real-time conversations with your audience. Is social listening a part of your online customer care strategy? Did it help you during a crisis? What tools do you use? Share examples and feedback that prove this strategy is working.

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.

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? Tell us how you reached your ideal consumers, and how you tailored a message just for them.

TikTok

How did you tap into TikTok's quick-hitting visual stories? We want to hear how you used this visual platform to engage your audiences.

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.

Video

How did you use video to enhance your PR? Tell us your vision for video as well as 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.

Voice Search Campaign

You optimized your product or service for voice search, and it got people … talking. What made voice search so crucial to your success? What tactics did you employ? What was the overall strategy? We want to know how you tapped into the power of voice search and achieved success.

Website

Your digital hub caught the attention of audiences. Tell us what makes your site a go-to destination for your audience. Be sure to share metrics, visuals and content.

GRAND PRIZE

Digital Communicator of the Year

You masterminded strategic campaigns across digital channels that achieved outstanding success for your organization or client(s). What tactics did you employ? On which channels did you excel? What made you the best communicator in the digital realm? We want to hear about it.

Digital Firm of the Year

Your firm’s services delivered incredibly successful campaigns for your client(s). How did you navigate the digital stratosphere? What tactics and strategies did you employ that earned engagement across digital channels? Why was yours the best digital firm?

Digital Marketing 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.

Digital Team of the Year

Your team’s collaborative efforts returned impressive results for your organization or client(s). How did you get everyone on the same page to create a killer digital campaign? What obstacles did you have to overcome? What made your team the industry’s best group of digital communicators?

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.

How To Enter

Campaign or Project Entries: 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 no more than 1,000 words and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):

  • Goals
  • Strategy and tactics
  • Execution
  • Evaluation: success, results or ROI

Team Entries: Tell us about the team's accomplishments in the previous 12 months. Be sure to include a thorough synopsis explaining the purpose and scope of the team's work. Please include examples of creative campaigns or initiatives that have proved beneficial to your organization or clients. We ask that the synopsis be no more than 1,000 words and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):

  • Goals
  • Strategy and tactics
  • Execution
  • Evaluation: success, results or ROI

Individual Entries: Tell us about the nominee's accomplishments in the previous 12 months. Winners will be those who have distinguished themselves among their peers with meaningful achievements. Please include examples of creative campaigns or initiatives that have proved beneficial to your organization or clients. We ask that the synopsis be at least no more than 500 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 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:

Brendan Gannon 
Ragan Communications 
10 S. LaSalle St., Suite 310 
Chicago, IL 60603

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should you apply?
Our award programs help you measure the success of your work and prove the value of your contributions to your organization. You can set yourself apart in the industry as an expert, which will open doors throughout your career. As a winner, you’ll earn publicity for your brand across our websites and social media audiences, a custom write-up about your campaign and a trophy.
Who can enter?
Entries may be submitted by organizations worldwide. The only requirement is that entries be submitted in English. The program is open to in-house, agency, independent communication practitioners and vendors in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors.
What does it take to be a winner?
We look for top-quality work that shows clear, bold and creative ideas that benefit your business or client. Please provide metrics or media coverage that back up your claims, and share creative collateral such as videos, visual design or websites that were a part of your project. Please look at our past award winners to see what gets recognized and rewarded. We encourage you to submit the same campaign to multiple categories, if you feel they are relevant. Doing so increases your chances of winning. You'll also save on multiple submissions of the same campaign or project.
Why are some deadlines extended?
We extend deadlines based on applicant needs and upcoming promotional opportunities.
When will I find out results?
Finalists will be announced in Spring of 2021. Winners and Honorable Mentions will be announced 4 to 6 weeks after the finalist announcement. Emails notify entrants of these announcements.

Additional Questions

If you have any questions about the program or problems submitting your entry, please call Brendan Gannon at 312-960-4407 or email brendan@ragan.com.

Sponsorship Opportunities

If you are interested in sponsoring one of Ragan Communications’ award programs, please contact Hannah Lavelle at 312-960-4628 or email hannahl@ragan.com.

Ragan Communications is not responsible for international shipping fees related to trophies or certificates.