Came across an interesting article on the PR Week site that talks about predictions for the top media trends of 2009. If these come true, they will have a significant impact on how PR professionals pitch media outlets.
Among the calculations from Birnbach Communications...
* Dozens of newspapers will shift to an online-only model. The traditional media that stay in print will use more maps, graphics, lists, rankings, and statistics, all while running shorter articles. You can already see this in the AEC industry with ENR's move a couple of years ago to a print-electronic hybrid publishing model.
* Media layoffs mean that freelancers and bloggers will become more important. What does this mean for the AEC industry? Well, for starters, it could mean less institutional knowledge among the reporters and writers who cover this industry. After all, if it becomes a model where freelancers are just going after paychecks, they will not spend as much time building relationships, which makes it that much more difficult for AEC firms to get traction with the publications their clients are reading.
* Marketers looking to reach broad audiences have their work cut out for them as well, as niche media and social media sites grow at the expense of broad-based media. Think Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook in terms of targeted marketing rather than an expensive direct-mail campaign.
Interesting food for thought, no?
Ed
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1 comment:
Glad you thought our predictions were interesting. Unfortunately, a number of them have already proven true, especially newspapers shifting to an online-only model. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went online-only at the end of March, and is the biggest to date; but the San Francisco Chronicle, its sister publication, may soon join its ranks. We then expect to see more give up their printing presses.
The conclusions you draw for the AEC space are spot-on, and will mean that PR for the sector (actually, all sectors) must adjust what it does, how it interacts and engages, and define benchmarks for success.
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