There seems to be precious little positive news about how technology is or will impact PR in the coming year. Short of discussions around the use of the social networks, I do not get a sense that PR is really looking at how digital services can boost their clients business success and I am wondering why.
Clearly, we are in the age of social video, so I would have thought it would make sense for businesses to be looking at how to use video to boost understanding of its products and their benefits. There are also wider opportunities to educate, inform and influence demand that help to shape a whole product approach to marketing beyond PR. A recent study by the Content Marketing Institute found that only half of businesses considered this to be a viable content marketing approach in 2011, but that more than 60% of the companies that used it thought it worked. Many still prefer articles, social media and blogs, but conversely are less sure they work as well as video (50%/50% and 58% respectively). (Members only report: B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends). However, the trend toward video is dramatically positive with 27% year on year growth. Expect this to increase further in 2012.
Moving forward, however, the biggest growth area is going to be in mobile. I believe that 2012 will see a rise of the mobile content delivery that may even eclipse traditional web channels. For PRs advising clients, you should think about mobile sites, mobile applications and mobile magazines as power tools to get their message across. At present, mobile content only makes up about 15% of the content marketing mix, so look out for this growing fast to reach similar levels to social networks and blogs.
I would be really interested to learn a little about the trends you see as a PR professional, so lets discuss it.
