THE DIGITAL PR OBSERVER NEWSLETTER ISSUE 9
Hey everyone. Welcome to Issue 9 of The Digital PR Observer Newsletter.
Here’s what you’ll get in this newsletter:
The latest Digital PR news and resources
5 quick fire tips to enhance your Digital PR activity
5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns
5 successful campaigns from the archives
The latest Digital PR jobs
If you're not already signed up, you can do so at using the button below.
Here is the latest Digital PR news and resources from the last week that you might have missed.
Digital PR Tips: 24 Blogs From 2024 That Digital PRs Should Read
Digital PR Tips: Digital PRs Share Their Favourite Campaigns From 2024
Digital PR Tips: Digital PR Learning Resources You May Have Missed From December
Digitaloft: Digitaloft’s SEO, Content & Digital PR Predictions for 2025
Root Digital: Reactive Digital PR: What is it & how do you do it?
editorial.link: 10 HARO Alternatives To Score Real Media Backlinks in 2025
JournoFinder: How to do your own digital PR on a budget
BuzzStream: What is Reactive PR and How Does it Differ from Proactive PR?
BuzzStream: Why Link Building Will Look Radically Different in 2025
BuzzStream: Where Do #Journorequests Come From [Data Study]
NOVOS: 6 Digital PR Trends To Watch in 2025
NOVOS: The Impact of Digital PR on SEO
Distinctly: Reactive wrap-up: 24 reactive campaigns we wish we’d thought of in 2024
connective3: Refreshing your PR strategy for 2025
Motive PR: Our Favourite Digital PR and Marketing Campaigns of 2024
StudioHawk: The Power of Storytelling in Digital PR: Tips and Techniques
PR Daily: Comms professionals’ predictions for AI in 2025
Vuelio: 25 PR & Communications Trends for 2025
TechRound: Expert Predictions For Journalism In 2025
Digital PR Explained Podcast: Original Research as a PR Superpower w/ Liz Weir
The New Leader: The State of Digital Agencies 2024
Market Movers Podcast: The PR Wild Campaign That Took Mark Rofe From PR Expert to Viral Sensation Overnight
Five quick fire Digital PR tips to help make you better and more efficient at getting SEO results via Digital PR:
1️⃣ Link numbers alone are just vanity metrics. 100 links sounds great but if they don’t have any sort of impact on traffic or revenue, they’re ultimately nothing more than a meaningless vanity metric. In your reporting, show what the impact of those backlinks is, not just how many you built.
2️⃣ Relationships with Journalists are quite overrated but one thing they are very valuable for is when it comes to providing expert comments. Having a Journo come directly to you for comments because they know you’re a trusted source can be a great way of bypassing the competition to securing coverage from that Journo.
3️⃣ Consider putting at the start of your subject line what type of pitch you're sending, e.g. "New Data". It gives the Journo immediate context and helps to seperate it from other types of emails they're getting such as free samples and press event emails.
4️⃣ When creating a blog post, Google your main keyword and read what the first page of results write about. If your post is a summary of the content on page 1 you’ll struggle to rank all other things being equal. If you can say something nobody else is saying you’ll rank higher.
5️⃣ This job can be a lot at times. Don’t forget to take time away from the news and how campaigns are performing. Give yourself time to reset and refresh.
Each week I’ll be sharing five data sources that you can use, either for content inspo, or as data sources for your campaigns.
1️⃣ Ipsos 2025 Predictions Survey
The annual Ipsos Predictions Survey is a fascinating look at how over 23,000 respondents across 33 countries perceive the future is going to be in the upcoming year. The survey covers a number of different topics which can be great ranking factors for index campaigns, such as how good/bad they felt the previous year has been, if they think 2025 will be a better year for them than 2024, and how they view their financial optimism for the next 12 months. Most of the metrics can also be compared to previous years dating back to 2018 for additional insights and analysis.
2️⃣ IOM World Migration Report 2024
Your go to resource for any facts and figures on immigration data. The report is released every two years and this is the latest one. The 2024 report includes data on the number of migrants in each country, what percentage of the national population are made up by migrants, and how these numbers have changed over time. Obviously a very politically charged topic, so use sensitively.
3️⃣ WHO World Health Statistics Report 2024
The World Health Statistics Report by World Health Organisation is a huge report with global health statistics that is released every year in May. The full datasets with breakdowns by country can be found here, which include data on life expectancy ages, mortality rates, suicide rates, infection rates, alcohol consumption and deaths, and access to health services. Another resource that is very useful when creating index campaigns comparing different nations.
4️⃣ The Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll
This study that was was recently updated in 2024 is a huge deep dive into what the world worries about (signing your pitches off with the Journo name field rather than the user name field isn’t on there it seems). The report includes insights from 147,000 people across 14 different countries and is a fantastic resource for exploring audience insights in different countries. Apparently road-related accidents is what the world thinks is the biggest risk to the safety for the third straight time the report has been done.
5️⃣ FBRef
If you’ve got a sports client then FBRef is a must know about site for any Football (Soccer) related data. If you need any stats for any player or team, odds are you’ll be able to find it on here. The tables are also very easy to copy and paste directly into spreadsheets which is a big bonus.
In this next section, I take a look at five campaigns from my archive of campaign inspo, with some quick fire analysis of what I liked about them and what made them work. Referring Domains (RDs) figures are taken from ahrefs.
1️⃣ Traffic Index by TomTom
📊 1,673 RDs DR 50+
TomTom’s Traffic Index is an absolute beast of a link building asset earning over 1,600 RDs DR 50+, and over 4,800 in total. The tool (which seems to currently be broken) is one of the best uses of internal data out there, allowing TomTom to create an extremely useful tool that gets cited as a source worldwide for any sort of traffic related story you can think of.
The tool is also a Local SEO ranking machine for TomTom. Each major region has its own stats page full of local traffic stats which helps them to not only earn more links, but rank high for pretty much any local traffic search.
2️⃣ Miniature Hedgehog Pubs by Camden Town Brewery
📊 23 RDs DR 50+
I always love PR stunts like this one from Camden Town Brewery where they were selling miniature pubs for hedgehogs to hibernate in during the winter, with all of the proceeds going to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. It’s creative, has a connection to the brand, is genuinely positive brand building PR, and just a lovely little story.
Sadly the campaign page goes to a 404 page and Wayback Machine doesn’t have the page archived which is frustrating.
3️⃣ How 4 Weeks of U.S. Paid Leave Would Compare With the Rest of the World by New York Times
📊 241 RDs DR 50+
Sometimes the best sources of content inspo actually come from Journalists themselves and the feature stories that sites like New York Times publish. This is a great example of just that. Whenever I see the topic of paid parental leave in the US, I’m always astonished that a county like that still doesn’t offer any paid parental leave when basically every other developed nation does.
As well as being a really well researched and written piece, there’s a key learning here in how valuable third party research can be when putting a great piece of content together. It doesn’t always have to be original research to make a campaign work. Obviously not all of us will have the advantage of a name like the New York Times behind our content, but the principle that great content will earn links remains true on any scale.
4️⃣ Music for your Vagina by INNOVO UK
📊 6 RDs DR 50+
As far as headlines that catch your attention go, “Music for your Vagina” has to be up there. When I was first saw this was a Spotify Playlists campaign I thought it would be a load of bullshit but the methodology behind it is actually pretty smart. INNOVO worked out the average BPM for kegel exercises and then matched that up with popular songs across fitness playlists to work out which have a similar BPM to seamlessly go with your pelvic exercises.
5️⃣ Faking It by ZAVA
📊 25 RDs DR 50+
Survey campaigns are very hit and miss for me, but I really like this one from healthcare brand ZAVA, who looked at the topic of faking orgasms. What I like about the presentation of the survey is that they’ve got their attention grabbing headlines such as how often people fake an orgasm, and the big difference between men and women, but then they’ve also ensured they’ve framed the results as an educational piece and not just a slimy sensationalist piece.
Points lost for the page now 404ing after getting some great links, but some of them are won back by their 404 page which made me chuckle.
In this section, you’ll find some of the latest Digital PR roles being advertised. If you’re currently hiring for a Digital PR role and want the position advertising here, you can add it using this form.
Likewise, if you’re looking for a new Digital PR role and are happy to have that advertised, drop me an email and I’m happy to give you a “looking for work” plug in this section too!
Position: Digital PR Director at Propellernet (Agency)
Location: Brighton, UK
Remote/Office Split: At least once a month in Brighton office
Salary: £50,000+
How to Apply: https://www.propellernet.co.uk/who-we-are/working-here/current-opportunities/digital-pr-director/
Position: Digital PR Director at Propellernet (Agency)
Location: Brighton, UK
Remote/Office Split: At least once a month in Brighton office
Salary: £40,000+
How to Apply: https://www.propellernet.co.uk/who-we-are/working-here/current-opportunities/digital-pr-manager/
Position: Digital PR Executive at AddPeople (Agency)
Location: Altrintcham, UK
Remote/Office Split: 2 days a week in office
Salary: Up to £30,000
How to Apply: Jack.jolly@addpeople.co.uk
Position: Campaign Manager at Shout Bravo (Acquired by Incubeta) (Agency)
Location: Manchester
Remote/Office Split: 2 days a week in office
Salary: Up to £40,000
How to Apply: hello@shoutbravo.com
Position: Digital PR Executive at Shout Bravo (Acquired by Incubeta) (Agency)
Location: Manchester
Remote/Office Split: 2 days a week in office
Salary: £26,000
How to Apply: hello@shoutbravo.com
And that’s a wrap for Issue 9. Same time again next week ✌️
Found this useful? You can sign up to receive The Digital PR Observer Newsletter in your inbox each week for free by clicking the button below.
Each week in the newsletter, you’ll get:
The latest Digital PR news and resources
5 tips to enhance your Digital PR activity
5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns
5 successful campaigns that we liked
The latest Digital PR jobs
If you’ve missed any previous editions of the newsletter, you can go through the archive of issues on the Digital PR Tips website.
Have any feedback for the newsletter? Anything you liked, disliked, or want to see more of? Send an email to matt@digitalprtips.com and let me know 🙂
8 January 2025
