PR in 2014

 

John Paluszek, Senior Counselor at Ketchum and very well-respected public relations professional has an interesting article on PR trends and where he sees the industry in 2014.

John discusses the convergence of public relations, science and technology in his article. I'd like to add my thoughts on where our industry is going, and three trends I see:

• Narrowcasting - people are getting their "news" from more targeted news outlets. In studies, younger people say they get their "news" from outlets like MTV News, for older "conservatives" we've all seen the increase in popularity of FOX News (at the expense of the big 3). "Create Your Own News Program" from different resources/subjects/talent/length is not that far away. Heck, on my standard three years old Comcast digital cable box at home, I can choose to watch different "parts" of CNN news programming when and in what order I want to. (Granted, I don't do it that often, but I'm sure it will be easier to do in 2014).
  
• Timeshifting - people get news and information on their schedule, whether it be via the Internet, in their cars, on their wrists (like John mentions) or more selectively packaged with tools like TiVo and personal digital recorders. These trends will continue - making it more difficult for us as PR practitioners to reach our audience with broadcast segments.
  
• Participation Journalism - What will a "journalist" be in 2014? Our definition of journalist means classically trained, generally impartial, available resources (and credibility and readership) of a known publication. With laypeople getting into the "news business" with blogs, this is changing. Blogs right now are primarily text and a few images. What's going to happen in a few years when Joe and Jane Consumer can shoot video of a live breaking news event on their video-enabled Cingular wireless phone, provide live commentary of the action and fetch it up onto their own blog (or someone who syndicates "breaking news" from these individuals) in real time?Will these new "pseudo-journalists" (like bloggers today) accept a relationship with PR professionals? Working with traditional journalists today is easier - they know how we PR people work and we know how they work. How will PR practitioners create relationships with these new "pseudo-blogger-journalists?" Like them or not, they're here. About 30-40 bloggers have been given credentials to the DNC and RNC conventions (for the most part, different bloggers at both). It will be interesting to see how other journalists interact with them, if and how consumers interact with their online content and if they provide any insight that traditional journalists don't provide.

Just some thinking I thought that you might be interested in.

-aB