The future of PR: Trends for 2019

New innovations are changing the PR landscape as we had previously known it. The communications industry is undergoing a transformation of late, thanks to things such as influencer marketing and artificial intelligence.

We decided to take a look at the biggest trends dominating the future of PR in 2019 so far.

PR multi-skills

PR industry experts have noted that the line between marketing, public relations and advertising is becoming increasingly blurred, with these disciplines becoming increasingly intertwined.

This has meant that it has become increasingly commonplace for PR professional to have to be multi-skilled in different fields, for example, simultaneously being social media experts, content marketers ad trend spotters all at once.

It has also lead to the proliferation of PR firms deciding to rebrand entirely into an integrated agency, in order to provide services beyond those of traditional PR, and this is particularly prevalent in the world of tech PR.

Importance of storytelling

Whilst the digital age has led to a number of significant changes to PR practices in the UK, especially as consumer attention spans have shorten e as a result of new technology, storytelling still remains key.

 With the issue of fake news and overall declining consumer trust, the storytelling part of PR is more important than ever.

Reputation and perception management

Reputation management and crisis communications are increasingly dominating the PR Industry, and this has continued to be the case in 2019, becoming a fundamental part of public relations today in the UK.

Why? One of the reasons is down to preponderance of social media, as well as that news these days can be disseminated extremely quickly thanks to new innovations in technology.

All of this means a scandal has the potential to be broadcasted and then spread around the world in just a matter of minutes.

This means ever-increasingly, the focus of PR is to upskill their staff as well as develop digital and social crisis communication strategies too.

Influencer marketing

We have seen a meteoric rise in the importance of social influencers in the last couple of years, and this will continue to be the case for 2019 and for the years to come for the PR sector. Due to the rise of influencer marketing, particularly on Instagram, PR professionals are having to integrate this tactic into their strategies more than ever before.

It works in favour of the PR sector, as they are in a fantastic position to be able to build relationships with important influencers on social media, developing partnerships with them to help build access to a designated target audience.