What to Expect in 2012

2011 was an interesting year for PR. We had, and are still having, a major debate about the definition of PR, a university scandal that upset the nation, making every institution re-look their crisis communication plan, and a large contributor and advancer of the technological world pass away. With all the woes and sorrows of 2011, the industry can only move forward to 2012 for a brighter future. There are many big things to look out for in 2012. Known PR sites/blogs, such as Mashable.com and Ragan.com, are prophesying new dynamics between stakeholders and PR professionals and integrating media trends in 2012 for PR.

Reporting to all stakeholders
As a result of the great discussion had at the PRSA conference, the prediction, and already integration, of PR practitioners reporting to stakeholders and not just clients. This includes investors, other businesses, and even customers. Reporting information concerning demographics, analytics and more involvement from all participating parties will result in more activity to manage for PR professionals.

TV convergence
The newest trend in TV watching is streaming the Internet and having access to the Internet with your TV. Major content producers are developing technology to access content from search engines such as Google. Google introduced Google TV about a year ago and is now just starting to catch on. What this means is that more people are using social media on their TV. The content of posts will be directly linked to trending TV shows, YouTube videos and other users on social media.

Measuring results
Algorithms are the future of measuring content and how it is received by an audience (SEO) and really the only way to calculate the results of your social media. If you have not been tracking your own social media you really should start in 2011, Twitter especially. Facebook now has their own analytics called Insights, which we know no algorithms, but Twitter is different because there is no developed analytics for the site currently. The bottom line is how do you know your contributing to the bottom line if you have no measurements?

Apps will rule the world
There’s an app for just about everything including social commerce. Starbucks was revolutionary with the idea that you could transfer money to an app to pay for goods. Starbucks has the app where you can pay for your purchases by pulling up a bar code on your phone that the cashier scans. More businesses such as Apple are doing this now and should be becoming more and more popular including and introducing more commerce through Facebook which will directly impact how you target your content.