Former Director – Communications, Amazon India
The Future of Public Relations
Technology has changed how audiences find and consume content and therefore the channels of communication, targeting of content and measuring effectiveness. Some reasonably safe assumptions for the future include –
1, The channels will continue to fragment, with continued erosion of traditional media. Younger generation finds news differently, including new age media, like Pubity.
2, Social media platforms keep changing, with dynamic algorithms and waxing-waning popularity – for instance, the teens don’t use FB; their usage of Insta is different from the older cohort; more companies leverage Linkedin now than X. Could there be new platforms tomorrow, say BlueSky?
3, There is early indication AI will change search – how (much) will it disrupt (or not?) the SEO strategies for media and content creators?
4, All tech especially GenAl is transforming PR – it will change skillsets needed, impact budgets, team/ agency structures and measurement mechanisms.
5, Employee communications, long short-changed for external PR, is beginning to claim its place in the sun. The western world has seen a sharp rise of employee activism on issues like racism, immigration, global political conflicts (Ukraine war/ Israel-Hamas conflict), sustainability, corporate governance among others, making it imperative to lean in more for employee communications. This hasn’t fully come into India and Asian countries yet but is the future.
Given these changes, PR must move away from short-sighted, media-only approach to build a mechanism-driven, long-term, defined metrics and outcome-driven function. Regular review of key audiences (customers across B2C, B2B or D2C brands, investors, employees, vendors and partners) and specific point in brand journey will decide the best channel mix (traditional media, new-age media, internal, social, owned, paid, influencer marketing etc.).
The global interplay for companies, not just multinationals, will increase, not just for new market launches but impacted by global customers and investors, the influence of Indian diaspora, inflection points in global geo-dynamics. Companies must build strong policy communications across traditional and social media, owned channels and employee channels. The multiple investigations into tech companies across the world, changing global geo-dynamics of US-China relations, global conflicts, impact on diverse employee audiences are just some such clear intersections for different aspects of PR.
This scale and complexity – be it large companies, be it new age start-ups navigating policy (for eg., think fantasy sports) – will make inhouse teams and/ or agencies lean in to stronger tech leverage and reallocate skills and resources. This will be a sharp learning curve to stay competitive and the need to find right balance between generalist vs specialised skills for internal comms, policy communications, social media and content, influencer marketing etc. requiring regular training and rotation mechanisms.
These developments will make PR among the most critical functions – in some cases, the CEOs may explicitly see themselves as the face for PR (think Elon Musk) but in most cases, the communications leaders and CXOs will work in tandem to ensure it’s effective, measurable and resilient as well agile to adapt to fast-changing business, competitive and political landscapes.