Public Relations (PR) techniques have been estimated to be as ancient as recently discovered Mediterranean clay tablets that promoted one farmer’s advances in agricultural methods. PR has been used by Egyptian and Babylonian kings, to increase their popularity and promote their right to rule using magicians, diviners and courtiers.
PR methods were used by the United States during World Wars 1 and 2 to promote patriotism and national support for the war efforts using news reels and magazines.
PR has advanced considerably with its subsequent use in brand promotion to consumers and as a critical and the primary outcome deciding political strategy.
PR in 2015 Defined
2015 was the year when the online dimension of PR developed in techniques and to levels exceeding former PR media efforts.
Even in the areas which have been promoted using “offline” methods, PR has become a primarily online means of brand promotion and personality and cause publicity, using web-based content techniques which utilize methods involving multimedia, storytelling and online social media venues.
2015 PR Trends
1. Increased Mobile Publicity
The ubiquity of mobile devices in years leading up to 2015 resulted in major changes to the way companies design their websites, publish their business/ brand content and promote their companies.
Earlier this year, search engine giant, google.com, released statistics revealing that more than 50% of the search requests that it receives originate on mobile devices. The implications of this are not novel. Subsequently, google.com further announced that companies whose websites were not mobile friendly would find their positions in the search results which the search site returns, deprecated.
Consequently, publicity efforts have increased their focus on ensuring that online promotions maintain a high level of mobile device compatibility.
2. Social Media as a Publicity Tool
Promotional efforts utilizing Facebook.com, Twitter.com, Linkedin.com, and other online social sites, have surged. 2015 saw continued growth in the use of these popular social media sites.
Marketers and publicists have increased employment of content editors, writers, and other creative professionals with the skill-sets necessary to tell the story associated with their brand, personality or cause.
3. Increased Use of Multimedia
Data released in prior years culminated in reports in 2015 showing that higher visitor retention and brand conversion resulted from implementing professionally developed visual content. Website visitors are several times more likely to retain a casual visitor and for longer amounts of time if their website has relevant video and other visual contents. Visual content also increases the likelihood of a visitor’s return by several-fold.
This trend’s momentum in 2015 ensures that it will further continue to remain important well into 2016 and beyond.
4. The Value of Quality Content
Quality content came to the forefront of quality PR as online marketers and publicists saw the highest popularity ratings going to those companies that focused on creating professionally implemented content. Today’s marketers and publicists are dealing with a user-base which is inundated by every type of content imaginable.
Delivering compelling content which entertains and involves the user and assists the user with making choices became a PR focus and priority of 2015.
5. Increased Responsiveness and User Interactivity
Today’s customers want responsive promotion feedback with which they can participate and view immediately. They do not make decisions in a vacuum and there is heavy interaction by these users with review-based websites before making critical decisions.
Publicity efforts which included fresh and regularly updated content, reflected current trends and events, and included the ability to allow a user to receive updates was an important publicity trend in 2015.
Conclusion
PR has come a long way since its origin on Mesopotamian clay tablets and WW2 newsreels. 2015 saw a large number of exciting PR trends develop and increase momentum. These PR developments benefited their implementers promotional efforts as measured by increased popularity and awareness of their brands, personalities and causes.
