It’s never too early to start thinking about 2022. So what trends should you be looking out for in the new year?
Here are the top trends shaping PR next year.
1. PR that resonates
First, it’s imperative to identify a target client base and gain an understanding of how they choose to interact with brands. Are they quick to buy, or are they engaged over longer periods of time? Once you know this, it’s time to build a strategy that effectively engages them.
Don’t be afraid to change tactics — it’s all about the differentiating factor. Diversification of approach is key, so look beyond traditional communication channels, to social media and events.
Here, you’ll find the opportunity to engage in a real-time, meaningful and personal way with your target audience, expanding your reach while maintaining an accuracy that provides the client with the correct information and the right message at the right time.
2. How to react quickly
New technologies, such as artificial intelligence, may change the way we work, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon the human touch entirely. This year, we will see marketers learning to adapt to different climates and be able to react quickly to changes in the environment.
Diversity is a crucial part of this response — being able to engage with audiences in different languages and cultures.
Our results will, in the future, be impacted by regional and local content, combining different methods, outputs and even different user cultures, each piece of content being consumed differently in each market.
We will also see an increasingly international audience, with the world’s largest city, New York, becoming the sixth most-frequent international destination for marketers.
3. PR in the wider environment
Next year, we will see an even wider understanding of how PR is embedded within the wider social and digital landscape. Every brand will need to understand how it can access the right audiences, how it can leverage the platforms it is active on, and how it can leverage its many social media channels to engage with audiences across different platforms.
As a result, we will see more brands diversifying their PR teams to reflect their ever-changing environment. Collaboration across various teams within the organisation will be essential, while also assessing their approach to PR and developing an analytics-led strategy to gain insights into audiences, behaviors and their digital and social trends.
4. Impactful partnerships
Don’t overlook the power of partnerships. Investing in a partnership with someone who shares your values and aligns with your brand is beneficial for both parties. These types of partnerships will not only help you demonstrate your commitment to your target market, but can also bring new benefits to the partnership, such as identifying new audiences and creating new business opportunities for both the brand and the partner.
5. Transparent communication
Effective PR requires an openness in how you communicate, which means working to the highest level of transparency with your audience. In the future, audiences will expect more direct interaction from brands and be able to engage with brands on a variety of different platforms, based on their interests.
This may not be compatible with the ways in which brands operate currently, but being open to these shifts will help communicate your message to the right audience at the right time, and you’ll be on the road to success.
Technology is the link that has allowed the workplace to evolve. Zoom meetings are now popular, and there are a range of communications platforms that have improved our ability to interact. Slack, email, text, WhatsApp, and a slew of other services are among them.
As if that wasn’t enough, social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others can also be used to target specific audiences. The overriding difficulty therefore becomes determining which channels are crucial to the audiences our customers need to reach. As a trusted advisor who can build a programme using the correct channel to send out the right brand message, the public relations expert becomes even more important.
Public relations has always been a dynamic business. It has an impact on the world around us.
A campaign today can include a variety of earned, owned, paid and shared media.
Exciting, right? With most of the established strategies changing in 2019, it’s an exciting time for businesses of all shapes and sizes, whether it’s about diversification or changes in response to changes in the marketplace.
Taking all of this into consideration, one thing is for sure: You need to continue to look at PR as an essential part of your marketing plans, and continually enhance it to suit your customers’ changing demands.
