3 Important Public Relations & Communications Trends for 2013

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The public relations industry continues to evolve. Marketing, communications and social media have played an important role in this evolution. PR Agencies are finding themselves diversifying beyond traditional PR and integrating other disciplines to continue their relevancy in the field. The skill set required of a publicist today is very different than those from years past.

While media relations still play a prominent role in PR, we’ve learned it is imperative to be adaptive and make sure that we shift our programs to fit not only what is, but what’s coming.

Here are 3 important PR and communications trends we’ll see in 2013:

1.
Integrative Communications
When we re-launched our website, you may have noticed that we also changed our name to denote the shift in the way public relations is heading. Since public relations is just one aspect of the communications mix, seamlessly integrating marketing, PR, social media and other platforms into a strategy that is cohesive and goal oriented is how we envision 2013 not only for our agency, but for the public relations field as well.
2.
Video
Storytelling has always been the pinnacle to brand messaging and video is at the top of the list this year for creating a multifaceted approach to that message. Consumers prefer a more engaging platform to learn about a company and turning more often to video to do that than they are perusing a website. It won’t only be curated video content that will be in demand, but face time via live video such as on Google+ Hangouts, Skype, USTREAM, etc.
3.
Visual Marketing
Tumblr was forward thinking when their visually based micro-blogging platform took off a few years ago, but it was the popularity of Instagram and Pinterest that propelled this trend into the mainstream. This prompted a more pictorial design approach to social shopping sites, the evolution of Facebook’s timeline layout, the re-design of MySpace (yes, there, I said it), as well as the many re-designed websites moving away from text-based copy to a more captivating and appealing imagistic space. Visual marketing will hold strong in content creation, and will become an important piece of the press release.