Be Prepared for These Emerging Trends in Public Relations

Jan 30, 2020

At this time of year, you’ve already been bombarded with articles about emerging trends in public relations; most of them deal in generalities. This post, however, will address a couple of nitty gritty issues you are likely to be facing this year:

  • What kinds of new tech will you hear a lot about, and maybe consider using in 2020?
  • How are PR experts combatting fake news? Is fake news a mostly political phenomenon or has it crossed over into business and other aspects of our lives?

Part two of this post will focus on two additional important trends:

  • With the shrinking of the media, what is happening to the PESO model of public relations — paid, earned, shared and owned? Is it still valid? Are the proportions of paid, earned, shared and owned content shifting?
  • What are the trends PR agencies are seeing in their quest for new clients? What kinds of competitors are smaller PR agencies coming up against?

AI drives tech trends

“Expect to see Artificial Intelligence (AI) become a more important part of a PR person’s toolkit,” says Wendy Marx, Marx Communications, in Trumbull, Conn. “AI can boost productivity and effectiveness.”

Marx notes that some PR professionals are worried that AI could replace jobs. “Ironically, not using AI will put you most at risk,” she comments. “While routine jobs may be replaced by AI, ultimately, it will make you a better PR professional.” She listed some ways AI will help you:

  • Create better campaigns, including identifying the best content and subject lines to feature
  • Compose simple content
  • Understand your audience based on current leads
  • Send follow-up notes
  • Provide social media insights
  • Identify and reach influencers
  • Improve buyer personas
  • Avert crises by predicting problems ahead of time

Marx is confident that if you’re not using AI, you’re hurting yourself. “It’s a way to make you smarter, more efficient and ultimately more effective,” she concludes.

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Susan van Barneveld, APR, president of Copernio, in Los Angeles, concurs with this. She mentions Software as a Service platforms driven by machine learning as the primary tech trend for 2020. “Groups such as the University of Southern California are working on creating platforms driven by AI,” she comments. She adds, “This increase in the use of technology will continue to blur the lines between public relations, advertising and marketing.” If you are starting an orthodontic dentistry specialty dental office, using Cloud 9 Software will make the core processes of your business easier and more cost-effective.

AI is also what powers a game-changing technology, “deepfakes.” When we see video and audio recordings, it’s natural to believe the evidence our own ears and eyes are giving us. However, using AI, the voice or face of one person can be exchanged for another so smoothly that only experts can tell the difference. Software to create deepfakes is easily available online. Deepfakes take fake news to a new level.

Says Fred Russo, executive director,  Botica Butler Raudon Public Relations in Auckland, New Zealand, “Without trying to sound dystopian, I think our industry is going to suffer at the hands of deepfakes.  Unscrupulous people and companies will begin to spread disinformation, political or otherwise.  And with an emphasis on ‘otherwise’.  For example, competitors or start-ups will have the ability to create fake celebrity endorsements or attacks.  They might even deliver false financial information from a listed company that looks like it’s from the CEO.  Deepfakes are readily available and their deployment is imminent.”  He adds, “The bigger picture is that social media companies and the platforms we’ve all been utilizing and recommending are headed towards regulation (and an overall global reckoning).”  More on fake news below.

  1. Fake news and AI

If your organization hasn’t already dealt with a fake news situation, you’re likely to face one soon. Judith Huss, founder and owner of Huss PR Consult in Munich, Germany, has a major news media corporation among her clients. Says Huss, “I work in the context of communicating what kind of efforts serious media are undertaking to counteract fake news and how the audience can be better educated to identify fake news in social media better. Obviously my job is also to communicate why it is better to get your information from an established media outlet rather than from dubious Facebook posts. This is even more important when dealing with serious topics such as politics, environment, economy, etc.”

Amy Rotenberg, Esq., of Rotenberg Associates, based in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, notes that more of her clients are becoming aware of the dangers and impact of misinformation and fake news. However, she worries that few have planned for how their organizations would deal with this serious and growing threat if targeted.

“I have seen an increase in clients seeking help to identify the sources of digital misinformation, and needing strategies for countering and overcoming its negative impact on their brand or their cause,” Rotenberg remarks.

She notes that three phenomena have come together to make fake news a big problem:

  1. The growth of AI
  2. Other new yet not widely understood technologies for synthesizing and distributing information
  3. Fluid laws and regulations on digital applications and platforms

“We are truly living in the ‘Wild West’ of digital information integrity,” Rotenberg says. “I expect that skilled public relations professionals, with special expertise in fake news and misinformation, will be increasingly in demand in 2020 and the foreseeable future.”  For more of Amy Rotenberg’s thoughts about fake media, see this blog post from 2019.

Comments Russo, “We see fake news as a major issue that goes far beyond inaccuracies and plain old lies.” He observes that a trifecta of problems need tackling:

  1. “To combat fake news, PR pros will need to help clients break into, and out of, algorithmic silos and filter bubbles. If you can’t get in, you can’t change a narrative.
  2. We’re also going to have to learn how to rapidly engage a social media behemoth and get fake and misleading content removed.
  3. And we’re all going to do our part and advise our clients that the tools at their disposal are not ethical to use. Within those new tools lay obfuscation, lies, and other forms of intentional deception – all are against any good code of PR practice like the Helsinki Declaration or the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand’s Code of Ethics. Bad practice ultimately destroys the business of the PR consultancy, the client asking for the service, and the reputations of anyone involved in the scandal.”

He notes that for some, the third might be the hardest task of all.

Stay tuned for part two of this post on emerging trends in public relations to see how the two trends discussed here impact the way public relations is practiced and how PR agencies are being chosen by clients.

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