I’m always interested to read predictions for the new year, and I found the following predictions for the PR industry in the January issue of Tactics worth sharing. As I read through each of the predictions, some were ones that our industry has been talking about and living with for some time now, but a few stood out to me that I wanted to share. Only time will tell whether or not these predictions ring true. What predictions do you have for the ever-evolving PR industry in the next year?
“Honing in on personalization with target audiences — while it should be about quality over quantity, we’re going to see companies take that extra step and personalize their message to individuals or select groups. We’ve seen this with Coca-Cola and their name campaign, but this trend is going to go further with social media content, blogs and emails catered to their receiver. It won’t be about how much and how fast we’re pushing things out, but about how we can make it unique enough to connect with its audience.”
— Rebecca Potzner, Twist on PR blogger, Social Media Strategist at Game Day Communications
“Content creation and curation will continue to grow in importance for public relations in 2015. What we’ll also see — as evidenced by the recent co-branded study we conducted with The Economist — is a greater effort by marketers to create more informative and insightful content that will help audiences make decisions. Also, we’ll see a rise in the use of qualitative research to understand target audiences. More marketers will set aside time and resources to experience their brand firsthand, from the outside in. This will help unearth insights to develop more salient content.”
— Steve Cody, Co-founder and CEO at Peppercomm
“What I see in my crystal ball is a return to sophisticated media relations. PR people are the ones at the proverbial table who can effectively persuade media of all kinds to cover our clients’ stories. In the quest for doing more, better, we should embrace this critical role and give it the spotlight it deserves. 2015 will be the year that we demand more from ourselves as media relations experts.”
