Author: Jeff Julin, President
For our first conversation of the New Year I want to share a little more detail about a couple of the “predictions” I recently gave the Denver PR Blog for their annual Public Relations in Prediction series.
As 2009 came to a close there was a fair amount of bashing of the last decade going on and for some pretty good reasons. However, for public relations professionals two things happened over the last two years I believe are creating a very bright future for our profession. First, is the explosion of social media. As the various components of social media and technology evolve, business and organizations are realizing, in remarkable ways, the power of building online and real communities. Communities depend on relationships which is what public relations is about. Consequently, I believe public relations is now leading the way to effective use of social media.
The second thing is as profound, but perhaps not as pleasant – the economic downturn. All organizations, profit and nonprofit alike are demanding that what we do as communications professionals supports, in very real ways, the bottom line, however that bottom line is measured. We must now truly be business people not just communications specialists. The Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) new campaign the Business Case for Public Relations is a reflection of this change and worth a look.
As we embrace this new opportunity we will find we have seats at all kinds of tables and our jobs will depend on outcomes not outputs. Now that’s exciting.
Happy New Year to you all.
