Abstract
Discussion regarding the evolving future of the public relations industry, with commentary pertaining to trends and changes observed and the challenges brought by agencies touting strategic specialty expertise.
Keywords: trends, changes, social media, digital, diversity, integrated communications, ROI.
The Future, Trends, and Changes
With the PR industry in an age of unprecedented onslaught by the twin hammers of digital and social media, it is more critical than ever before that individual PR organizations as well as the industry as a whole be poised to take advantage of this combination and integrate specialties still seen by the public as outside core PR offerings (Tilley, 2013).
Discussion
The “softer” metrics available to PR professionals today pose a challenge to organizations that still insist on more specific and tangibles measurements of ROI, which would seem to contradict the fundamental definition of public relations that is rooted in people and relationships (PRSA, 2013), neither of which lends itself well to tangible statistics, pie charts, and line graphs. It is incumbent on the PR industry, therefore, to build a new measure of ROI based on metrics more encompassing than Facebook “likes” and sales dollar values—which is not to say that these should be discarded altogether as forms of ROI metrics, as tangibles still provide significant amounts of measurement data, and an organization’s bottom line is still very often the bottom line (one imagines that the primary raison d’être for the majority of business ventures is to turn a profit). The impetus is to look beyond these traditional measures and demonstrate the softer, less tangible but nevertheless very real and significant value of conversation, expertise, the seeking of advice and the organic dissemination of information, all from the organization in question (Scott, 2015).
A direct corollary of the above is that in order to take advantage of and be able to use these softer metrics, it is imperative that PR professionals integrate their various communications (PRSA, 2013). After all, what good is publicizing an event on Facebook and driving throngs to said event if the sponsor hasn’t already taken the initiative to build and proliferate a portfolio of specific and well-thought-out Twitter hashtags and driven their use throughout the event to keep moving the conversation forward and beyond just the static time and space of the event? One envisions that in a worst-case scenario, the event attendees will be left to their own devices when tweeting interesting content or moments from the event, resulting in a haphazard, fragmented event conversation instead of the coherent, robust, and active conversation—and therefore PR gold—that could have exponentially increased the sponsoring brand’s visibility in the larger social media sphere.
Statistics show a disturbing trend of PR clientele who are supplementing their PR organizations with “specialist” expertise (Tilley, 2013): though 54% of agencies are clients of PR agencies, 86% said that they engaged separate experts to consult in areas that were beyond the capacity of their PR firms. Quite apart from drawing income away from PR agencies as a result, these separate entities may well end up manifesting the same expertise they claim of integrating communications: two separate organizations (one traditional PR, one disruptive communications) may not be able to mesh their visions together for the welfare of their client when their objectives and directions are otherwise quite closely aligned. As Solis points out (PRSA, 2013), the team—or individual—responsible for an organization’s Facebook content may not be the same entity handling the faster-paced Twitter feed. Or if they are the same entity, they may not have adequate interaction with the marketing team who is responsible for brand choreography (Burgess, 2012), resulting in collateral that does not represent or reinforce the company brand, to the suffering of brand visibility. Or the team member working under a vague “social media communications professional” umbrella has little interaction with the communications or PR team sending out press releases, to much the same effect. These disparate elements, conversations, and stories, are very significant challenges to the entire purpose of public relations, in which a single—but agile and flexible—relationship is built between the brand and those it serves.
A positive trend in this environment is the increasing diversity in public relations (Tilley, 2013), with increasing importance on diversity of background and experience. As a result, members of a PR team need not be limited to those with a background in public relations, nor those with a degree in journalism. According to Tilley (2013), a television producer and data analyst have equal seats at the PR table. This means that public relations can draw from multiple backgrounds and experiences to craft a story in order to appeal to those from multiple backgrounds and experiences, but the challenges to integrate seemingly disparate communications streams is still very much in play: the television producer and data analyst may bring different and specialty points of view to the PR conversation, but they do still have to put old biases aside with a stringent eye toward integrating both conversations into the same story.
Conclusion
As Solis (2013) points out, this is an exciting time to be in public relations, as the industry is well positioned to leverage advancements in digital and social media. It also can be rather frightening for traditional PR professionals who have so long relied on the “old rules” of marketing and public relations (Scott, 2015) that they face significant challenges in adapting to the emerging ways in which the larger audience chooses to (not is made to) interact with the brands they patronize. However, specifically because of digital and social media, those PR professionals who are willing to change can indeed do so, and find that in the doing, they are able to return to their roots of building relationships between people and the brands—and therefore the people—that form their social experience and community.
References
Burgess, M. (2012, 07 03). Brand Choreography Through Integrated Marketing Communications. Retrieved from Blue Focus Marketing: http://bluefocusmarketing.com/2012/07/03/brand-choreography-through-integrated-marketing-communications/
PRSA. (2013, October 17). Conference Recap: Brian Solis On the Future of Public Relations. Retrieved from Public Relations Tactics: http://apps.prsa.org/searchresults/view/10397/105/Conference_Recap_Brian_Solis_On_the_Future_of_Publ#.Un7IDJRgYXR
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing & PR (Vol. 5th Edition). Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.A.: John Wiley & Sons.
Tilley, J. (2013, September 25). Industry reacts to The Future of the PR Agency study. Retrieved from PR Week: https://www.prweek.com/article/1213317/industry-reacts-future-pr-agency-study