Public relations is constantly modifying and developing. Now, affected by the pandemic and war, there have been significant shifts in the industry yet again. PR experts are adapting their game and using new, creative ways to get better results for their companies, trying to predict the future of public relations.
Just like every other industry, the public relations industry trends can be influenced by a variety of reasons such as technology, preferences from the customers, global events, and more. And as all of those elements are changing businesses, methods of work, and budgets. The PR strategies have to adapt and cater to society and business needs as well.
In this article, we’ll go through the PR trends in 2022 and the upcoming 2023: what the trends in PR are, and what to do to comply with them.
Predictions for PR Trends 2023
What the trends in media industry should you be looking out for in 2023? Here are some tendencies that are likely to become the mainstream in PR next year:
Simplified brand messaging will resonate more
People want to read short and punchy brand stories — so you’ve got to streamline your clients’ brand messaging to keep up.
Keep things concise, but don’t scrimp on value. You may only have a few sentences to get your point across, so you need to dive right in. Don´t beat the air: get straight to the root of why your client is so important and make that your focus.
Empathy, a lot of empathy
Knowing what’s trending in your industry is key to being a true expert in PR. But in 2023, you’ll have to be involved in global news and events, too.
Empathy is everything to today’s audience. And to keep up with this 2023 PR trend, you’ll need to make sure all communications, copy, and pitches are socially-aware and take into account what is happening in the world. No one wants to support a brand that neglects important events and crises, even if it’s happening on the other side of the globe.
Think beyond what’s directly impacting your client’s target audience and change your focus to the global community at large. Be conscious of all global news, whether positive or negative. A single rush social post can cause a big PR crisis.
Use of interactive content
Interactive content is the future of PR, media creation, and marketing. This format of content allows the audience to engage with it by clicking, leaving comments, or answering questions. Good examples of interactive content are polls, quizzes, and even shoppable or interactive videos. Interactive content is worlds apart from written content, which is static.
Interactive content is changing the PR landscape very fast. In fact, some companies have already started experimenting with mixing static content with interactive content. Interactive content will also help boost your brand reputation and authority and get your message across.
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Trends in Public Relations 2022
So what are the main tendencies in PR? Let’s take a look at five top PR trends that should drive your brand strategy:
Struggle with fake news
In the era of an incredible quantity of content, it is no longer a battle of who will get access to the most information, but rather who will get access to the right sources. Authenticity is a key metric for the success of a company, and in that sense, a key trend that concerns the industry. PR experts need to make sure that companies have an authentic voice, whether they truly believe in what they protect, keep in mind that everything promoted about a brand needs to be checked.
The Russian war in Ukraine led to a shift in many directions we did not expect. The change in branding, messaging, and content overall has made the audience in the form of a consumer revolution. They are now more critical and distrustful of information, because of the flood of misinformation, caved consumers.
This is businesses need to make sure they go the extra mile for that. Otherwise, prospects will be relentless in the event of non-authentic content.
Engaging the employee
Brands often focus their PR efforts on attracting or engaging the public externally, forgetting that good PR begins at home. The last two years have demonstrated to us that there is nothing more business-critical and at the same time influential than the employee.
In 2021, Better.com’s chief executive officer, Vishal Garg, announced the dismissal of over 900 employees over a Zoom call. After he told the remaining staff that the dismissed employees’ unproductivity was comparable with theft. After the story´s disclosure, both he and Better.com’s board sent apologies and a third-party firm was hired for a leadership and culture assessment. CEO also took an immediate leave of absence.
With the increasing prevalence of remote work and freelancers, it is more important than ever for brands to get internal communications right. Not only because this is an opportunity to improve internal communications, but because this partnership could very well reinforce the reputation of a company.
A crucial change in the consumers
The average representative of the new generation uses their smartphone a lot more hours per day. Usually, they cannot go for more than 30 minutes without checking their phone.
PR experts need faster to turn their attention to Gen Z – the next generation of consumers. They break the record for being exposed to the internet, where digital PR and digital marketing dominate.
Focusing on Gen Z is an emerging trend in 2022 that cannot be neglected. So be attentive in analyzing this generation with all their trends, interests, causes, passions, methods and channels of communication, etc.
Diversity and inclusion put into practice
With the growing global reach of PR campaigns, the growing need for diversity and inclusion needs to be applied. Considering the interest of people from different ethnicities, cultures, and social-economic backgrounds should be a mandatory part of every PR strategy. A diverse community will have a diverse effect that will bring you many new and different perspectives on how to design strategies for PR, branding, and leadership.
Social listening will become more important than ever
The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have shown that social media is a valuable source of insights for the audience. If a brand wants to engage with the public, then this is the right thing to do it.
Sometimes people confuse social monitoring with social listening. Social monitoring includes keeping up with online conversations about your brand to obtain valuable insight into the sentiment about your products and services. Social monitoring is the basis of good social listening.
At the same time, social listening is a more active form of social monitoring. Where a company´s representative participates in these conversations. This way, the brand can interact one-on-one with the audience and build positive long-term relationships with them.
Connecting with your audience is mutually beneficial. It helps you better understand their needs. Once you know their pain points, you can improve your product or offer new services that they will truly appreciate.
Media outlets will be looking for more “contributed” articles
Just make sure you aren’t writing a TV commercial about your company. Most good famous editorial heads appreciate strong contributed content.
Research what the outlet covers, collect data or stats on the stories you are telling, and look to engage, entertain and educate. Showing proof of your predictions, and points of view will give credibility to your articles and improve your reputation.
Align your purpose with an ethical audience
The war and pandemic have shown us both devastation and incredible acts of kindness all over the world. During this time, we’ve seen an incredible shift in values as well as discernment. As such, the advent of an ethical audience is growing. Ethical awareness relates to one’s eagerness and skill to define moral situations and dilemmas by critically analyzing, estimating, and changing one’s own moral values in terms of the lives of others. An ethical audience is one who then actively interprets any shared material they come across and analyzes the content and messenger’s effectiveness.
Consumers are actively shrewd between brands that are purposeful against those that are not, gravitating toward the former. Start with formulating your brand values inside out, work on modeling these values and communicate these values to your audience.
Social media platforms are continuing to revolutionize how people and businesses can market themselves. The issue is, however, many marketing experts consider it only as a platform to represent and promote their products or services. When it comes to social media, brands need to think of it as a two-way street. Nobody likes it when another person ignores them, and the same can be considered when brands ignore their consumers and treat social media as a one-way communication channel.
Air your words on podcasts
Podcasts are the new broadcasting networks, so use them. If you’re not creating podcasts, you’re not taking your PR strategy seriously enough. Whatever field you’re representing, you can bet there will be a fair number of podcasts suited to your niche so why not make use of their audience? You’d be surprised at how many podcasts actively look for new guests to interview so you´re welcome to approach. If you lack the free time or don’t know where to begin, take this into your consideration when choosing a PR agency to work with.
Public Relations Trends 2021:
No matter how you performed in the previous year, 2020 has been a roller coaster with ups and downs in our new reality, unstable economy, and society. Regardless of where in the world or what type of business, that year has been a busy year for PR as well. Whether it was public health releases, launching new procedures for Covid-19, cancelations, and/or social distancing campaigns, there were many occasions to pitch, announce, and/or de-escalate. As we come to the vaccines rolling out, it is time to take a breath, look back and start analyzing Public Relations trends. Let’s discuss each one of them in detail and you will find success in your public relations campaigns by adopting these Public Relations Trends.
Predictive Analysis
It may be surprising to you, but the future of PR is predictive analysis – powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
How it may be useful for PR experts? Based on historic data trends, predictive analysis tools can be used to understand current and predict the next topics and issues that are likely to capture the audience’s attention.
Another growing trend is that of data-centric PR managers who are using predictive analytics tools in their day-to-day work. Predictive analytics tools will simplify the process of searching importing data and extracting valuable insights to the benefit of brands and customers.
Read more: Analytics in PR: How to Measure Campaign Performance?
With millions unemployed and thousands more unable to work due to COVID-19, companies need to understand who they are communicating with on a human-to-human level. Companies and PR experts have to consider how their brands are relating to people’s actual psyches, emotions, and complexities. And if they’re missing the mark by leaning into their virtual and artificial personas, roles, or abstract profiles.
Many companies have started to take a more consumer-centric approach to promotion but this is still not a rule for everybody now. So double-check your PR strategy and rework your entire internal and external communication to focus on the individuals you’re trying to reach, whether it be customers or employees.
“Raw Video” is the New “Produced Video”
Short-lived content continues to perform very well with TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook Stories. Many businesses and content creators are finding fantastic success with this short-form format that is accessible for only 24 hours.
Such content will continue to beckon because it’s easy to create due to its more easy-to-produce and informal nature. And this is making it a useful tool for individuals and brands alike that are trying to increase their sphere of influence. When paired with content creation tools like TikTok, this fast content will continue to drive high engagement and conversions.
Read more:
Content Consumption Habits Are Changing
With many people worldwide at home, people have started to consume more content but in a new way. People stopped commuting to and from their workplaces. Downtime at your desk doesn’t exist when your children are learning remotely with you at the kitchen table.
Brands need to share their content and reach audiences differently. Short-form storytelling (60 seconds max) will be the only effective way to grab your audience’s attention in the future. Any longer and your target audience will skip your post.
Content Relevance
Certainly, you’ve heard many times the phrase “Content is king.” The idea is that all you have to do is create quality content, and the world would beat a path to your door. Well, the value of this suggestion plummeted once everyone began creating content.
Today, we have a new king running the show. I’m sure, that relevance is the next important principle when developing content. Relevance should be your top priority when combining PR and SEO to “own” specific topics, terms, and knowledge in your business.
If relevance is king, then targeted distribution is his queen. Previously, industry winners were those who built a big community and effectively distributed their content among their following. It was only later that companies began to realize much of their following was not all that valuable.
For the next two to three years, your ability to dominate any industry will depend on getting your message across to a relevant audience. These are the people who care about and need your service or product—and are in a position to act on—what you have to say.
Read more:
- Think You Know All About Content Marketing? Think Again
- Content Distribution Strategy
- 5 Ready-to-Use “Small Budget” Content Marketing Tips for ALL Businesses
Earned and Owned Media
In 2021, the combination of earned and owned media is as hot as ever.
Owned media includes your own channels, such as those on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, blog or it can be the website that you’re running.
Earned media is when the press and public shares your content and speak about your business. That’s why this process is called earned—your product or service, your efforts, or something else you’ve done has earned you mentions on the media outlets.
This is going to be huge, and one thing that matters to get earned media interested is dependence on the previous trend — relevance is the key. Sending the right PR pitch to the right journalists can provide you with brand awareness and the attention of your target audience. To realize it you need an impressive list of contacts. If you don’t have it, you have to start earning them or use some outsourcing PR services. One of them is credible and affordable PRnews.io. This team will write, pitch, and distribute your stories at a fixed price to relevant publications with the audience you need. With their huge experience, skilled team, and impressive contact base, they know how to make email pitches to be appealing, catchy, and captivating to involve authoritative newspapers and magazines.
Read more:
Senior managers have a renewed voice and purpose
People have become more socially aware than ever before. As a result of the social movements all over the world, consumers are keeping an eye on the brands to see their behavior in crisis, their reactions to the issues, thus catapulting business leaders into the limelight. In 2021, leaders’ opinion and their content will be invaluable as consumers seek to do business with and align themselves with brands that share similar values and beliefs as they do. Proactively use your social media accounts to give your leaders a platform and a voice to be heard by potential clients.
PR Storytelling
PR Storytelling keeps the hottest position in public relations trends. Every day some new product is created and not every product can earn the attention of journalists. Creative storytelling in the case of product promotions has to engage and transfer an idea of what fantastic life would people have with your product or service.
“THE MOST POWERFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD IS THE STORYTELLER. THE STORYTELLER SETS THE VISION, VALUES, AND AGENDA OF AN ENTIRE GENERATION THAT IS TO COME…”
STEVE JOBS.
PR storytelling is crucial as it explains to the audience the background of the product, why they need it, and how it improves their own life. Telling someone they need a certain tea versus telling them about where it grew, and how they can become a part of this cycle of nature and enjoyment, has a noticeably different impact.
Go Green | Public Relations Trends
The green movement is probably the most effective way to not only help the environment but also your PR strategy and beyond.
Firstly, you can apply a sustainable workplace or amend the production. You may begin with energy-efficient lighting as well as recycling practices. Also, you can encourage your team to bike to work, and use locally produced goods.
Secondly, you can sponsor green not-for-profit organizations in your local community. Such initiatives create an emotional connection between you and consumers, which will positively impact your brand, and bring you long-term benefits and an edge over your competitors. It’s clear that you must go green or go home.
Conclusion: the Future of Public Relations
Combining upcoming and old strategies is more competitive than ever before to capture attention and spread positive brand messages. Remember, that consumers continue to be less forgiving and more demanding. Brands need to be prepared to react to this “new normality” by remaining authentic and fresh. So make sure you keep up to date with the latest trends in PR and keep reading our blog.
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