Abstract

The social media is disrupting the PR campaign cycles; it is being displaced by social media campaign tactics which belong to an entirely different ecosystem where the act of sharing social media content generates publicity in lieu of a campaign event. Social media is often associated with reputation management and brand awareness, but when used well in PR campaigns, it can also lead to conversion, help with brand positioning, and ensure the ongoing viability of the business. Today, the significance of digital storytelling and public relations has increased significantly. Harnessing the power of storytelling, a company can influence the perception of its brand and products and create emotional connections with customers. The USC Centre for Public Relations in its “Global Communications Report 2017”, maintains the top three trends identified as: Digital storytelling; Social listening; Social purpose. The 2023 report titled; ‘New reputation’ explores the evolving nature of corporate reputation. The engagement between the consumers, employees, and investors to build reputation is nothing but story telling. A public relations team needs to be aware of the value of storytelling. It is crucial to concentrate on the issues and problems that your audience faces and how those difficulties can be resolved. It would be interesting to study, how award-winning PR campaigns used story-telling on social media. To study the topic, the paper employs collective case-study approach. The methodology would entail to select award winning campaigns of the year and then study the social media campaigns of these brands as case studies. The cases would then be analyzed on various aspects: The storyline; the digital story-telling, audio/video/ interactive websites/games etc.; social listening: social engagements, linear/nonlinear; consumers leading the conversations; investor stories; social purposes; engagements and interactions. The paper is significant as today the corporates and brands must go beyond pitching products. It is much more important to be authentic, and engage with the audience and the media. PR can witness the good story grow, evolve, and inspire new ones to do their job. The outcomes of the study would put light on the digital story telling importance and its role in brand building.