Public relations practitioners play a vital part in a brand’s reputation. Good PR helps you promote the brand image that you’ve built and protects it. By employing the right strategies at the right time, you succeed in boosting good PR while making bad PR matter a lot less.
Today’s landscape for PR is constantly changing, therefore a huge part of a PR professional’s job is to stay up to date with current and emerging trends.
What mattered to consumers two or three years ago may look very different today. As we know, PR is all about how a brand is positioned to look in the eyes of consumers, so you need to know how certain tactics or strategies resonate with your audience and what the current trends of the day are.
Why It Pays to Pay Attention to PR Trends
Just like marketing firms, public relations firms experience trends, too. We’re seeing more noticeable trends emerge each year as the gap between PR and marketing narrows.
While having established relationships with media and influencers, knowing how to write and pitch intelligently, and being authentic and accurate are still integral for generating brand awareness, there is an increased need for PR to connect to a brand’s overall business plan.
There are many things that influence PR trends, from consumer preferences, to employee expectations, and technology, for example. As each of these areas evolves, PR strategies must also evolve if you want to continue presenting your company in a favourable light.
Piccolo PR have put together a handful of PR trends that are absolute musts for 2022.
1.Growth of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.
If you are selling a product or service and are not on platforms such as Rakuten, ShareaSale or slimlinks then it is a good idea to look into this. This is a big PR trend for 2022 as it helps drive revenue for media outlets, influencers and brands.
2.Shorter Pitches
Journalists, editors, influencers and podcasters are flooded with pitches, so by making your pitch short, punchy and to the point, you are bound to stand out. It may be more effective to include bullet points that highlight the main points of the media release or story instead of a long body of text. Additionally, explaining ‘why’ this is relevant to the editors and readers will usually lead to them requesting more info. Alternatively, you can hyperlink more info, but do not add copy to the body of the email.
3.The Blurring of Paid and Earned Media
PR professionals are now collaborating more with editors and influencers to promote brands through social media networks, digital ads and influencer marketing. As platform native tools like “swipe up” features on Instagram and educational video reels as well as other tools for promoting brands increases, press exposure will be more prevalent. If everyone involved in the strategy can win, and messaging and promotions can become more monetizable, the PR exposure is more likely to happen.
4.Inclusion, Diversity and Awareness are big factors to consider in your PR efforts
More companies and brands are doubling down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This means that we, as PR professionals, must be more aware of the stories we pitch. We must do our research, know the audience and be sensitive about how we pitch and always act with a conscious mind to build relationships with the media community.
By keeping this in mind through all your PR efforts, you will see more success and gain more respect for your work.
Companies that promote diversity and inclusion as part of their public relations tactics are not only appealing to customers, but also prospective employees.
5.Authentic influencer partnerships
Trust has become a leading reason for consumers to purchase a brand’s product. This means that building transparent and authentic relationships with influencers has never been so important. As PR professionals, we must choose wisely the influencers that we reach out to. To promote our clients brands, we need to remember that not everyone with a social media audience is a true and trusted ‘influencer’.
Strong influencer partnerships and campaigns can grow brand social proof, build engagement numbers and drive success by having a trusted person speak to his or her audience. A knowledge of TikTok and video-reel creation is also essential for most PR campaigns.
6.Podcasts!
Podcasts have never been more popular and listened to; this makes them an important avenue for PR in 2022.
Podcasts are proven to be an effective platform to “story-tell” because it offers audiences the opportunity to listen to more in-depth conversations about a brand and founder.
7.Media outlets will be looking for more ‘contributed’ articles
You may be asking yourself, What’s a ‘contributed’ article?
Well, unlike an article written by a reporter about a company or its products, contributed articles are written by the company and are meant to lend a vendor-neutral perspective on topics relevant to a publication’s readers.
These articles are becoming more sought-after as media rooms continue to downsize, so definitely include this tactic as part of your PR repertoire.
8.PR Pros will need to pitch across broader networks and platforms such as Twitter, IG messaging and LinkedIn.
It is becoming more and more common for PR professionals and editors to connect on social networks and discuss business through Twitter, IG messaging and LinkedIn. These platforms are easily accessible and more direct, and allow for a more personal relationship.
9.Live Video PR
Another PR trend that cannot be ignored moving into 2022 is the popularity associated with live video. In fact, since 2016, the amount of people engaging with live video has doubled, making it one of the most popular forms of brand promotion and PR success for this year.
We can’t overstate how impactful social media will be in the coming years when it comes to supporting business initiatives, so make sure to become familiar with all of them and their different tools.
Lastly, the pandemic has led to a shift in PR, marketing, messaging, and branding. Fake news and misinformation abounded, leaving consumers wary of whom to trust. So for 2022, authenticity is the number one trend that all PR practitioners must incorporate in order to successfully promote and position clients brands.
