Public Relations Trends to Watch in 2015

• PR has probably changed more in the last ten years than it has in the last three decades.

• For communicators, new challenges and opportunities have come along with the changes we have experienced as a society, most of which have roots in the influence of the Internet and social media.

• We are living through a creative and transformative period. With each passing year comes a time to reflect on how far we've come and, perhaps more important, how much we still have left to figure out.

Public Relation

• What will PR look like in 2015? • What will the challenges be?

Questions to be asked?

Mobile will expand even further

• Last year was the year of mobile. So was the year before that.

• According to Pew Research, in 2014 58% of American adults had a smartphone.

• In 2011, that number was 44%. • In 2015, the number of smartphone users will

continue to grow, and soon it will be a virtual certainty that your audience has access to the Internet on the go.

Press Releases Will Evolve

• When was the last time you read through an entire press release? Proofreading your own releases doesn't count.

• Just as other forms of communication are changing, so are press releases.

• Look for visual content to further infiltrate press releases, as the standard text-heavy format become less popular in the coming year.

Real-time marketing will become more widespread 

• The effectiveness of real-time marketing, or messaging based on current events that can be disseminated quickly, comes hand in hand with increased social media adoption.

• It's also a great way to show brand personality.

• In 2015, this type of marketing will no longer be a nice-to-have—it will be a necessary part of communications campaigns.

Visual content, specifically educational content, will be all the rage

• According to an October PR News/PR Newswire survey, 51% of professional communicators say that their video budget will increase in 2015.

• That trend isn't necessarily surprising, but communicators are also now getting the message that people don't want to be blatantly advertised to through videos.

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The crowd will get involved

• No one will soon forget the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

• The viral phenomenon has become something of a Holy Grail for turning social media buzz into brand awareness, and attempts to replicate the success will continue into next year and beyond.

Security Will Continue To Be An Issue

•  A series of hacks in 2014 from Sony to Snapchat to iCloud to Heartbleed to Home Depot and beyond served as further reminders of how dangerous a connected world can be for business.

• Security will be a primary concern in 2015, as more information is collected and used through digital channels.

Quality Content Will Trump Quantity

• Savvy brands already understand the importance of quality content.

• To make sure you’re heard and to bypass competitors, you’ll need to focus more on quality than quantity.

• One high-quality piece of content can be used over and over again to appeal to both current and potential customers.

• Content will also be needed to appeal to stakeholders. Audiences need to be entertained, inspired, educated, activated, and engaged.

• In-house editorial teams are necessary for creating content calendars, quality assurance tools, style guides, and, of course, the content itself.

Visual Content Will Grow In Popularity

• Visual content, especially videos, are already important when it comes to marketing, but in 2015

• Businesses will devote even more of their budget to developing this type of content.

• Advertising via videos won’t use blatant marketing messages, though.

• Instead, they’ll aim to educate the viewer, since industry studies have shown that customers want to learn something, not just be sold to.