We asked a group of PR professionals: "How do you think PR will change (if at all) in the upcoming year?" Here are a few of their responses: Non-traditional PR approaches will be key in 2017 "Media relations will move further into pitching story ideas via social media and mobile channels. Many reporters won't take phone calls anymore and some are now saying they'd rather be pitched via text/twitter rather than email." "I think we'll continue to see an increased focus on the ability to build and deploy a well rounded content strategy. The way we all consume information about the products and services we buy is changing, and PR professionals need to be able to advise on everything from customer service responses, to blog posts, to social content, executive content, web, and earned media." The U.S. presidential election results' lasting impact "For better or worse, we're going to see the impact of a Trump presidency on business, at a macro and micro level. This might prove to be a time where business needs crisis comms leaders more than ever." "In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, I think many journalists will be more skeptical in the upcoming year of everything from PR people to other news sources to survey data. I also think PR will continue to shift ever so slowly with the rest of the industry toward more of a gig-economy."
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The blog post below was written by technical marketing & product leader, Priya Ramamurthi, and was also published on LinkedIn.  Marketing has changed and evolved significantly in the last few years (the rise of content and digital marketing, multi-channel customer targeting and increased focus on analytics) and perceptions of what marketing is and can do for an organization depends on the industry, size of organization and the past experiences, which drive expectations of c-level executives.
In larger consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, brand marketing often sits at the helm driving strategy - developing long-range plans, creating brand differentiation and positioning while also executing through cooperation with finance, operations, integrated marketing teams. Larger technology companies are driven by engineering, where even if product marketers are CEOs, they tend to have a very strong engineering background and focus. As a result, roles in product marketing and field marketing focus on product understanding, in addition to pure marketing expertise. Within these mature organizations, PR or marketing communications is a strong pillar to ensure both brand building and evangelism. A PR program is part of the larger marketing strategy and works in tandem with -- not separately from -- the rest of the marketing team. For smaller companies, marketing and PR are often perceived as interchangeable. There might be a notion of marketing being equivalent to either a press release or analyst coverage. Additionally, there are views on marketing being purely digital paid marketing through a myriad of channels be it Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, to name a few. We’ve found that it works better to think of marketing holistically to drive business strategy and decide on the vehicles based on target audience, consumer buyer journey and budget. Developing brand and product positioning is often vital to ensuring the PR strategy or ‘first press release’ is on point. A piecemeal approach to marketing and PR can lead to confusion or worse lack of product uptick. Marketing and PR working in tandem drive better results for an organization. This does not necessarily mean significantly higher spend. Here are a few ways to think through this:
 Earlier this year, we invited 3 of the top LA-based journalists -- USA Today's Jefferson Graham, Fast Company writer and freelancer Neal Ungerleider Investor's Business Daily's Brian Deagon -- to join us for a candid discussion around a variety of topics ranging from their top pitch tips and their typical work day to the promotional push into social and video.
Below, we've compiled a few of the advice highlights from our hour-long conversation at WeWork Playa Vista below to help us all improve our relations with members of the press.
Stay tuned for more highlights from our Above The Fray event in future posts! In the meantime, are there any topics you'd like to get journalists' perspective on? Let us know as we start pulling together our 2017 events calendar.
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ROAMingsWelcome to ROAMings, a compilation of thoughts and musings about the PR and media industries. This is an opportunity to discuss the “here and now” of the industry, interesting events or case studies, pivotal moments that affect how we approach PR, etc. It isn’t about brand loyalties or preferences -- and we will not be publishing self-promotional materials or talk about our clients in this setting -- but how those brands, individuals and events are leveraging (or in some cases abandoning) PR. Archives
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