Digital PR trends & hot topics in 2009

It was a breakout year for digital PR in 2008. Marketers, politicians, publishers and agencies delivered strong integrated communications programs with a heavy social media focus. The digital transformation of PR continues to accelerate as more audiences use the web as their primary news source. Here’s a quick look at the developments, trends, and the types of programs we are discussing with our clients this year.   

Obsession over Analytics – As the recession causes corporate marketing budgets to tighten, social media may be the most cost-effective option in a marketer’s toolkit. But, measuring the ROI of social media has historically been a challenge. This is something we obsess over at C&W Digital (i.e., linking our programs to “goals” and measurable business outcomes), and it’ll be even more important in the months ahead.

 More Interaction, Less Campaign – Marketers will begin to explore PR strategies that support a constant and evolving dialogue with audiences vs. launching a series of one-off campaigns. Conversations shift by the second in today’s half-second news cycle. Companies like Starbucks and Southwest Airlines realize this and have enhanced their PR strategies to focus on programs that keep them connected with audiences throughout the year.

Customer Relations – Marcom teams will catch on to what Comcast and Zappos already know – customer service is a powerful marketing discipline. Far too many companies view it as an operational cost and not an opportunity to build relationships with customers. As conversational marketing continues to catch on, we’ll see more marketers actively listening and responding to customer service issues online. Church of the Customer and Brian Solis have great perspectives on this.

Corporate Community Hubs – As the first corporate movers in digital and social media (e.g., Dell, GM, Nokia) reach a stage of “maturity” in this space, they will take (or have already taken) a step back to assess their programs, determine what’s working/what’s not, and look for new opportunities to innovate. One thing we’re seeing is the emergence of “Community Hubs” – sites like GMNext and Dell Community that aggregate a company’s various social media into one site, sometimes with single sign-on for users.

 (image via Kheoh Yee Wei on Flickr)

Expert Sourcing – First, we saw corporations implement crowdsourcing approaches like Dell IdeaStorm and My Starbucks Idea. We think this is still a huge opportunity for many companies.  This year, we’ll see a new “flavor” of this in expert sourcing – the practice of tapping specialized talent inside and outside of an organization. Chris Townsend of Forrester recently wrote about it, and we’re working with a client to develop this type of network now.

Social Media for Internal Communication – There are huge benefits to using social media inside the enterprise – internal blogs, forums, wikis, Facebook-like social networks, crowdsourcing, micro-blogging using Yammer, etc. Major brands, including some of our clients, are starting to catch on to this.

Legal Issues:  The social web continues to become more vast and complex. With this comes great opportunity from a PR standpoint, but also risk in the form of enforcing and abiding by privacy, copyright, and disclosure rules. For instance, last year we saw companies like ExxonMobil and Burger King get brand jacked by people impersonating the brand on social media sites. Conversely, some marketers are still getting ousted for stealth marketing online. This year more companies will update their corporate communications policies to meet the increased complexities of social media engagement.   

Mobile Marketing Takes Off (Really) –Next generation smartphones and 3G speeds have finally made mobile a viable marketing channel. Brands are creating mobile applications at a fast and furious rate. Good examples are Kraft’s iFood, REI’s Snow Report, and Wal-Mart’s “Blow a Kiss.” This is already picking up in 2009 as agencies/marketers incorporate mobile ideas into PR programs.     

What are you seeing out there?

Thanks to Brooke Hovey and Rachelle Spero for their input.