What’s in Store for the Future of PR?
It has been said the PR industry is starting to show a resemblance to the economy in America. That is, those at the top are continuing to thrive and make huge profits whereas the smaller firms are being squeezed out. That’s not to mention those who fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, numbers of which are declining.
It is becoming evident that PR is divided into three separate areas of specialty. Those are Advocacy PR, Traditional PR and Social Media PR, the latter option of course being a relatively new emergence in the digital world. There are of course firms that are able to provide all three of these services but in order to do this effectively, they will have invested a great deal of time and resources in becoming experts in each field.
Over the past few decades, there have been several important changes in the media industry and this has meant the PR industry has had to adapt in order to keep up. For instance, the amount of people who continue to read the news in print has been decline for many years now. News is being consumed online by an ever increasing number of people and the emergence of social media has fueled this trend. This has in turn affected the ways in which publicists reach out to the relevant platforms in order to promote their clients and material.
Traditional Public Relations is known as the practice of getting stories into the mainstream media. Even with the social media revolution of recent times, this is still an effective way of gaining exposure. However, the general consensus among those who specialize in this field is that workloads are increasing whilst pay still remains much the same as it has in the last few years.
Advocacy Public Relations is a much more specialized and highly resourced path which involves a large amount of time and money. By spreading their content online on huge scales, Advocacy PR firms are able to get their message heard a lot louder and a lot clearer than that of Traditional PR. The success of Advocacy PR largely depends on what is put into the campaign and how the audience perceives it.
When it comes to money, Advocacy PR is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Social Media PR. Within reason, there is no budget too small to launch a social media campaign. It is not only a great way to save money but also a great way to speak directly to a relevant audience. The success of these campaigns varies widely but the point is that everyone has the potential to do this well.
Social Media PR is something that works most effectively in collaboration with other mediums. It is an amplifier for content that has been published elsewhere as well as a platform of its own. For the moment, social media is still somewhat behind Traditional PR mediums in terms of reach and results but it is rapidly closing in as its uses continue to develop and become more apparent.
Moving forward, it would be safe to say that none of these three types of PR are going to fall out of use. However, the discussion of the importance of one over the others is arguably only getting started with social media already a strong emerging contender.
Alix Jones
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