One of my favourite authors, Ryan Holiday, once said, “Everything is change. Embrace that. Flow with it.”
I think this quote is more relevant than ever in the world of public relations (PR) and strategic communications.
As PR professionals we need to reflect and review our PR skillsets and ask ourselves: are they still relevant? What is becoming more important? What is less important? Are we stuck in old ways of doing things? Not to say the old ways of doing PR must be discarded but what are we doing to remain relevant in the marketplace?
Without a doubt, what is becoming more important is having digital skills and literacy, strategic counsel and development, reputation management with stakeholders, and crisis communications.
On the other hand, what is becoming less important is writing long press releases for the sake of getting media coverage.
Here are the key things I believe PR professionals need to keep in mind for 2023:
Metaverse – Understand what is the metaverse and how its changing strategic communications and how can you leverage metaverse platforms. For example, Ubuntuland in South Africa. ‘Meta’ means beyond and ‘Verse’ means space. It means beyond the physical space (an extension of the physical world) that is the simplified version. Media events in the metaverse are inevitable.
New creator economy platforms – Understand the new creator economy platforms and how they can work for your brand. For example, Polywork, Mastodon etc. Partnering with content creators in the new creator economy platforms and not just relying on the old legacy platforms such as Facebook, Twitter etc.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Develop a basic understanding of AI and automation. Unpacking the implications of AI for the future of PR. Arm yourself with the right knowledge by enrolling in courses that can help you to better do your job. You don’t need to know how to code but a basic understanding and how it is applicable to the world of PR.
Measurement evaluation and analysis – Slowly move away from using Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) metric and start using the Barcelona Principles as the measurement and evaluation for your campaigns. AVEs were introduced in the 1940s (second industrial era). We are now in the forth industrial era but we still using them…we can do better.
The world of PR is witnessing a paradigm digital shift. In the past we used to rely heavily on earned content by issuing press releases to the media.
Now we are seeing more and more PR practitioners working closely with the social media teams from an ‘owned’ channel point of view – an integrated approach is the way to go. More brands will invest more in their own media channels such as podcasts.
Themba Msimango is a Chartered Public Relations Practitioner (CPRP) and Stoic philosopher.
