Trends in Public Relations

Until recently most public relations activity involved person-to-person contact between PR professionals and members of the media, such as journalists and television news reporters. However, several trends are developing that alter the tasks performed by PR people. In most cases these changes are the result of new Internet technologies that are quickly gaining widespread acceptance among Internet users and are becoming new media outlets in their own right.

“Public relations is not a magic pill- it must be worked and managed like other marketing tools and tactics.” 

These trends include:

• Social Media. By far the most significant trend to affect public relations in the last 25 years is the impact played by social media. In a matter of just a few years, social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, have created opportunities for monitoring and communicating that are quickly raising these methods to the top of the list of PR tools. But while it offers tremendous PR advantages, social media also poses significant threats. One of the most pressing issues is that social media forces PR professionals to respond rapidly to negative or misleading information. In effect, social media is turning PR into a 24-hour job, particularly for global companies. Also, the time required to monitor and respond to the growing number of social media outlets is forcing some companies to place less emphasis on traditional public relations tasks, such as the creation of press kit materials. Since social media is still evolving as a PR tool, it is unclear if shifting workload to social media will carry the same return on investment as what is offered with traditional PR tools.
• Discussion Forums. Web forums are the child of the old Internet bulletin board services where people can post their opinion often anonymously. Forums pose both opportunities and threats for those involved in PR. A presence in an influential forum helps build credibility for an organization as forum members recognize a company’s effort to reach out to the public. On the other hand, forums can cause major problems as a breeding ground for rumor and accusation. Public relations personnel must continually monitor forums and respond to misguided comments posted on a web discussion board to help squelch rumors before they can catch fire.
• Podcasting. The emergence of the Apple iPod and other digital audio players has significantly altered how people listen to music by allowing easy downloading of desired songs. But the use of audio players is not limited to music downloads; a fast growing application is to deliver other content including programming. Public relations may soon find podcasting to be a quick and easy way to send out audio news releases and other promotional material.
• Search Engine Optimization. An important trend for delivering company information is through an Internet technology known by the acronym RSS (what it stands for depends on who you ask but most accepted name is Really Simple Syndication). This technology makes it easy for people to know when new content is posted to a website.

Public relations is not a magic pill – it must be worked and managed like other marketing tools and tactics. But if done well, it can help entrepreneurs break through the clutter and give us a presence far greater than we have.