Authored by a renowned crisis communication expert, David Fuscus, CEO of Xenophon Strategies, Inc
Over the past 20-plus years, no industry has been disrupted more by technology than public relations and communications. At the turn of the millennium, PR was largely earned media, working directly with journalists to spur stories or becoming a trusted source for inclusion in organic articles. Think about it. In 2000, most people got most of their news from professional journalists: physical newspapers, television broadcast and cable news and, to a lesser extent, radio. Then came the transformative power of technology.
In rapid succession, the companies that would transform the way we consume information and connect with each other were founded: Google in 1998, Netflix began streaming in 2007, Facebook in 2004, 2005 for YouTube, Twitter launched in 2006 and Instagram in 2010. When Apple ushered in the hardware revolution with the iPhone in 2007, it poured gasoline on the bonfire of change and the flames burned everywhere through the established communications world order. We started to do everything differently; shopping became more than an occasional package from Amazon, changed how we interacted with friends and began to consume information in new ways.
A key aim for any PR campaign is to establish credibility early on. Each person has their own process for judging what information is credible and for many that is – rightly or wrongly – social media. But the most important fundamental for establishing credibility for a story or pitch is still earned media. The planning process for all PR campaigns have several mandatory components, including audience identification, communications avenues such as earned media, social, digital advertising and others. But none of these tactics will work if audiences do not consume the story. And to consume a narrative, people first must find it credible. And the best way to establish credibility is still with a story done by a professional journalist published in a known outlet.
Today, working with professional journalists has become just one element of a PR campaign, but still a critical one, because just like 20, 30 or 40 years ago, the first question to ask when designing a campaign is: “So, what’s the news?”