PR is no longer just about media
In 2019, PR will finally grow beyond its media-centric boundaries and beyond, writes PR consultant Katie Clift.
2019 will be a defining moment for public relations worldwide. The start of the new year will signal a new era where PR will come into its own, and finally define itself as an industry based on far more than just media relations.
Yes, you read right. In the past, PR has been seen and practiced as purely media relations, including drafting press releases, pitching stories to the media, securing coverage and maximising an organisation’s reach across as many media platforms as possible: online, TV, radio, print, magazines, podcasts, you name it.
Public relations is defined as an organisation’s relationship with their ‘publics’ – the audiences that make up the public, as a whole. The PR industry won’t continue to be solely a media-facing and media-serving industry. Public relations will be about the broad strategy of engaging and communicating across all of an organisation’s relevant publics.
This means PR strategies will be about more than just writing stories for journalists and building media coverage. They will harness communications that specifically target all of an organisation’s publics, from business to consumers, customers, media, communities, governments, social media followers, competitors, and everyone in-between.
The swift increase of the fourth industrial revolution, the rise of technologies and the speed of global progress means we can’t afford as PRs to simply focus on media as the sole strategic channel to build our reputations with the public. Not all our publics will consume traditional or social media. People now expect (and rightly so) for messages and content to be tailored specifically to their individual needs across a variety of touch points and channels.
The awareness of our companies, messages and services will reach far beyond a TV story or online feature. By taking a hold of diverse communications and tailored content we will relate even stronger to our target audiences in different ways. It won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach – we will need to become clever about the way we position our brands on every platform, for every type of public.
The same strategies we use to get the media’s attention will be used to get attention from other businesses, competitors, followers, communities and customers. We will be writing, pitching and publishing unique content that cuts through to deliver strategic communications and build a strong reputation with every public that we define as relevant.
As our media, marketing, communications and technology sectors rapidly develop in 2019, so too will our need to be flexible, adaptable and ahead of the game when it comes to PR and communicating with our publics. This isn’t sales or marketing conversions with customers. This is about ensuring our reputation and communication with the world are readily available to all, seen by all, understood by all, and well-received by all, not just the media.
Get ready for 2019. We’ll be writing, pitching and positioning for the world, not just journalists.
Katie Clift is director of Katie Clift Consulting Pty Ltd
” more than just writing stories for journalists”
Oh I am so sorry, I (as a journalist), simply cannot write this story. Can you please do it for me?
Gerroff….
Or are you just saying you want our job? As you can (apparently) do it better. I think in this example, I think you are actually mistaking “journalist” for “fanboi of you client’s products / services”.
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PR should be focused completely on the media and pitching/securing media coverage. It’s the one specialty that PR agencies and consultants have as their exclusive domain vs other outputs where lines are completely blurred.
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Am I the only one that finds it disturbing that the words ‘truth’ and ‘facts’ are not mentioned once in this piece of fluffy nonsense, which really says nothing new at all. It is simply reversing the politicians’ credo of diversion – ‘look over there, not here’ – and saying ‘Don’t look over there, look only here.’ Seems its to be an intensified campaign of selective ‘truth’ for broader audiences, many of whom will not be seeing the forest of fact for the trees of half-truths.
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You mean you haven’t already been doing this for the past 5-10 years?
Just what have you been doing? Press releases?
This forward looking review is paradoxically already out of date.
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Genuine PR NEVER WAS just about media. It has always been just one element of a much broader profession. This article seems to be a :”revelation” of something that is not new.
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Agreed
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Oh dear Katie. Have you been living in a time warp stuck in 1999? This piece is just embarrassing
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This is either embarrassing piece or great satire on the PR sector.
(a) in itself it’s classic PR spin. A hook with absolutely no supporting evidence as to why: “2019 will be a defining moment for public relations worldwide. The start of the new year will signal a new era where PR will come into its own, and finally define itself as an industry based on far more than just media relations. Yes, you read right.”
(b) it’s making a point that anyone who has even worked with or in a proper PR agency has known for 10+ years – and positioning it as a revelation. Serving only to position the writer as a complete noob and insult the intelligence of the reader.
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And further to point (b), it isn’t a good look for Mumbrella I reckon.
This kind of vacuous piece adds no value to any kind of debate on the role/value/future of the sector from the PoV of either client or practitioner.
I assume Mumbrella team recognises this.
So why is it here? Just to fill space? Or will literally anything be published?
I call on Mumbrella to exercise some editorial quality control in 2019 on these opinion pieces if it wants to be seen as a forum for meaningful discussion – which it frequently is.
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PR now also includes the wonderfully crazy and technical world of SEO. Welcome to the new age.
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You clearly aren’t a journalist then. PRs often contribute hugely to many stories – we do the research, get the background, get quotes, find people to appear in stories, etc etc. Lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen pieces of my writing and my work appear in stories within major newspapers.
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LOL Katie!
PR had its lunch cut years ago by the emergence of stakeholder engagement as a separate discipline on one front and change management on another.
Both of these utilise communications as components of a larger strategic function, of which media is but a small fraction. Sorry my dear, your boat has already been swamped. I’m surprised you can’t feel the damp already.
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Someone still thinks PR people are just empty suits …….
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