PR Trends For 2019

With the complete world takeover of social media, lots of things have changed, especially Public Relations. As more businesses are in the landscape, marketing has shifted toward storytelling and content has become heavily video-focused, competition is HIGHER THAN HIGH and it’s become that much more important for brands to find the best ways of getting the word out about their product or service. Then you throw in how the environment is changing, cross-globe politics, the capacity to break news with a tweet and it’s like a crazy game that has become indescribably difficult to win.

As we move into a new year, here are some PR trends we think will evolve…

EARNED MEDIA + CREATION OF YOUR OWN NEWS

• When a credible source talked about your brand, it’s stronger promotion for you than anything you could create on your own. Seeking out 3rd parties to help share your story, and consistent focus on how to create interesting stories for this exact sake is crucial.

SHIFT TO SOCIAL MEDIA

• Continued transition from traditional media (press releases mass distribution) to more social media-focused campaigns and support. Earned media and the third party credibility it offers is super important, but the capacity to tie programming that engages the community at large can support getting the word out as well.
• Social listening, the concept of listening instead of just posting. Real-time listening and response times will become detrimental to brands everywhere.

SPONSORED NATIVE CONTENT

• Sponsored native content in support of PR messaging, that’s to say, utilizing press platforms to publish brand content and leverage their communities in a paid, but still creative, way that gets the info out, but still tells a story. I think buying ads in promotion of press will also see a rise.

DECREASED USE OF MASS DISTRIBUTION SERVICES

• Decrease use of newswire/mass distribution services and increase of localized PR efforts that have a stronger look and feel. Reaching out with custom pitches is key, and we’d rather get one great story than the same story published to a bunch of random sites that no one will ever see. That’s not to knock mass services, we send out mass as well, we just collect the contacts ourselves to make sure we are distributing to as targeted a group as possible.

LOCALIZED PR TEAMS

• Use of localized PR/comms teams for local activation. We do PR for some large brands and work tirelessly to turn national/broad campaigns into grassroots efforts that have a local touch and feel (and a face!) that people can better connect with and support.

PERSONIFICATION OF YOUR BRAND

• We say it all the time, but the best brands are your pals. They are your friends, and in order to be a friend, they have to have a pulse. We think brands will focus on authenticity

We can’t wait to see what this year has in store for our clients and we look forward to growing alongside the changing media landscape!