Posted:

3 Apr 2017

Will the PR agency as we know it be around in 10 years time?

Nick Ringrow – Account Manager at Spreckley

I was at a team lunch the other day following the hire of our new social media executive and eventually the question arises, will the PR agency as we know it still be around in five or 10 years time? There were a couple of differing opinions but overall the consensus was, no. At least not in the traditional sense.

The backbone of traditional PR is media relations, we all know that. Day to day activity of liaising with the press to further the reputation and agenda of our clients, that hasn’t changed. But we are working in the 21st century so nothing we do these days is siloed away from the omnipresence of technology.

Social media campaigns, SEO management & ranking, infographics, white papers, talking heads videos and so on. While increasingly becoming part of the offering that clients can expect from many agencies, there are those that are still reticent to make the move towards a more encompassing solution.

I got my first PR job in an agency with a very successful advertising department and the two worked in tandem together to offer a more full service solution. Agencies still presenting themselves as ‘media relations’ agencies are being pigeonholed into an ever-dwindling niche. Arise the full service content creation agency, PR 2.0.

As the myriad of contact streams continue to grow, both for consumers and enterprises, PR’s must diversify themselves in order to fully capture their client’s target audience. By presenting a range of content creation skills in-house, PR’s are able to offer a greater service with a wider scope of support and message dissemination. Stakeholder relationships will always be the fundamental of PR, but the platform for engaging with those stakeholders is changing and the industry must change with it.