As I had time to unwind over the last few days due to the holiday season, I have been spending a significant amount of time contemplating the future of public relations agencies. While many of the large, highly-identifiable agencies still brand themselves as public relations experts (i.e. Edelman, Waggener-Edstrom, Fleishman-Hillard, etc.), I do not think the term “public relations” fully encompasses everything that agencies specialize in nowadays.
The media landscape is vastly changing. The days where public relations professionals woke up to scan hard copy newspapers for relevant news are long gone. The current 24-hour news cycle has completely changed the media.
As a result, public relations professionals must have an in-depth understanding of new media, especially social media. The increasing popularity of social media has provided consumers and key publics with a strong voice. Therefore, we tend to have a great deal opinion in our news today. One small tweet or Facebook post has the potential to be viewed by millions of people.
Journalists are no longer the only people public relations professionals must foster relationships with. Anyone can make news today.
Thus, I believe the term integrated marketing communications should be used to describe agencies. Integrated marketing communications is identified as the mix of advertising, public relations, promotion, branding and direct marketing to effectively communicate with the target audiences.
In order for agency professionals to successfully communicate their messages to the identified audience, there must be a balanced mix of various strategies. In today’s busy media environment, we are constantly competing for our audience’s attention. Therefore, we can no longer rely solely on public relations to generate a significant buzz.