Reactive digital pr is all about response and you guessed it, reacting. It relies on there already being a story, article, trend etc out there that you are able to respond to with a link to the brand you are representing. This involves an always-on approach where you are looking out for trending news stories or maybe even awareness days. These slides are from a talk at Digital Women Live, London, November 2022 by our Digital PR Manager, Lauren Field. To read the accompanying blog, head to https://www.honchosearch.com/blog/digital-pr/how-reactive-digital-pr-can-benefit-your-business/

1. HOWREACTIVEDIGITAL
PRCANBENEFITYOUR
BUSINESS:
Links

2. La
ur
en Field
• Digital PR Manager at Honcho
• Worked in digital for 5+ years
and Digital PR for 3 years
laurenkfield
LaurenFieldPR

3. What we’ll discuss today
•What is reactive Digital PR?
•How can you be more ‘reactive’?
•Love Island Case study

4. From interactive to reactive..
how is Digital PR changing?

8. What is reactive digital pr?
Could be in the form of
an expert comment or
additional data
All about response,
reacting to a story that
is already trending or
being discussed
No on-page
content

9. “Over 20 million Brits trust a brand more when
they see it mentioned in a publication and 3 in 5
will look for articles on a specific brand before
purchasing from them.”
Censuswide

10. How is reactive pr different
to digital pr?

11. It’s all about speed…

12. KEEP UP TO DATE WITH NEWs
AND POPULAR CULTURE

13. LEARN ABOUT SUCCESSFUL
METHODOLOGIES

14. JOIN DIGITAL PR COMMunitiES

15. MANAGE RISK ASSESSMENT

16. What you should do..

17. Check if this story has
already been
commented on

18. Make sure it aligns with
the brand and you
have the expertise to
comment

19. Check backlink profiles

20. Investigate the topic internally

21. What you shouldn’t do..

22. News-jack something
that doesn’t align with
your brand or target
audience - reactive
isn’t for everyone

23. Be insensitive

24. Use old media lists

25. Over-react

26. What are the
benefits of
reactive
digital pr?
•Get your brand/
company coverage
•Build authority in
relevant topics
•Join trending and
popular conversations
online
•

27. How does
reactive pr
fit in with
your digital
pr strategy?
•Build brand exposure
through expertise in
additional comments
and data
•Helps diversify your
backlink profile
•Can be used to put a
new angle on existing
pr campaigns

28. HOW HONCHO UTILISED
LOVE ISLAND FOR LINKS

29. Love or hate it, Love Island has the
majority of the nation in a chokehold.
With the final looming, what better time
to take advantage of the conversation?
Initial ideas were around predicting who would be
this year’s finalists based on factors like public
opinion on socials and which couples had been in
the bottom three, tracking this against previous
years.
After researching and keeping track of Love Island
coverage, we decided it was better to opt for data
that would predict how well this year’s finalists
would do in terms of brand deals and earnings once
they leave the villa.

30. Bringing The Idea
to Life with Data…
Using the Inbeat Instagram
Money Calculator, we found out
just how much each contestant
could request per sponsored
Instagram post based on key
metrics including follower count
and engagement rate.
Then, we took a look at their
occupations before they entered
the villa, and their estimated
finishing place based on bookies
favourites.

31. Our original plan had been to find trends and include
contestants over a 5 year period. However, our data didn’t
give us a clear method of correlating the data with
predictions of who would come out on top in terms of
opportunities, so…we pivoted.
Throughout the process, we kept our eye on the news
cycle to make sure we had a relevant hook, deciding
instead to focus on the islander’s previous occupations
and average hourly wage, and how many hours they
would’ve had to work to earn the equivalent of their
sponsored Instagram post rate.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ADAPTABILITY

32. We worked fast, and targeted publications that
had provided an ongoing commentary
throughout Love Island Season 8.
We changed up our subject lines to reflect the
way the journalists we were targeting wrote theirs.
We paid attention to the sentiment of tweets
about contestants on Love Island to understand
who the fans were most interested in hearing
about.
We played on the financial angle of the campaign
and related this to the Islander’s previous
occupations to make the story more relatable to
the journalist’s target audience.
SO, HOW DID WE OUTREACH THIS?

34. SUMMARY
•Reactive Digital PR is great for anyone in an industry that
has a wealth of data or authentic expert commentary
•BUT Reactive Digital PR isn’t for everyone
•Results are relative to time/resource spent
•Stay on top of news

35. Thank you!
ANY QUESTIONS? Get in touch today.
laurenkfield
LaurenFieldPR