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PRCA 50: What does the future of the PR and communication industry look like?

This is part of a series of blog posts celebrating our 50th anniversary, all of which address the question: What does the future of the PR and communications industry look like?

We’re being told we’re in a ‘golden age of PR’ at the moment as there have never been more jobs, greater opportunities, or more platforms on which we can voice the messages of our brands.

But every coin has two sides, and part of the reason that PR is having its moment in the sun is because media isn’t. It won’t come as a surprise to any of us, of course, when we say that newsrooms are shrinking, that journalists are having to do more with less resource, and that many media outlets are still grappling with the need to monetise what many see as a free resource, with their online news output.

As a former journalist, now in PR, I have a great deal of sympathy for our journalist colleagues, but I also want to suggest that, as PRs, we need to think smarter and invest in the right kind of talent now that will help both the PR and media industries in the future.

As journalists are more hard-pressed in creating content, the future of PR will be down to the content-creating ability of PRs. This means that, as PRs, we’ll need to have a full range of tools in our arsenal to disseminate brand messages. At BU, we have already moved to a multimedia model – every member of the PR team needs to be ready to create well-crafted written copy, but also equally capable with shooting and editing video, taking a quality image on a proper camera (put those smartphones down!) and be literate with the latest tools that help to tell stories in a new and engaging way.

As we look to the future of PR, we need to be looking to the future of news dissemination, to the future of communication and to understand the tools around us that will help us to continue to tell our messages in a fresh and engaging way.

That is what I am looking for in a potential employee, the ability to tell stories in a multimedia, cross-platform way; whether that is social media, shorthand, video content, or picture stories.

That is where I see the future of our industry going, as we take a lot of these functions in-house, or within an agency without outsourcing, to be able to offer the best multimedia service for the brands we represent.

Moving forward, it is my hope that the UK continues to have a robust and thriving media upon which PR needs to work hand-in-hand with, but PRs also need to be aware of the dissemination tools out there to help them tell their own story.

The future of PR will be for the innovators, and the forward-thinkers to grasp; success is for the PRs who are able to adopt new skills quickly, who can upskill to be able to tell stories in a variety of ways – those who can tell a story with a social platform, a video, or a trusted piece of copy!

We need to keep innovating, telling stories that engage people, moving with our audiences, onto platforms and in formats they are used to engaging with, and we need to find ways to disseminate our own news, just in case a time comes where the media might not be able to help us.