Public Relations Trends in 2024: What is HOT and What is NOT?

Everyone has their understanding of what the trend is.

A trend is the general direction of changes or developments. There are makeup trends, public relations trends, fashion trends, and everything in between.

What was trendy a year before may not work this year. Like everything else, public relations trends are also constantly changing, and to stay ahead of all the changes, you should read all the time and, most importantly, try out-of-the-box strategies by yourself.

When looking for the correct description of PR, one would be perplexed as to which one is the best. 

The “What People Think I Do” meme for PR could go something like this:

PR – Perfect Relationships.

Public Relations is all about communication, and having a good relationship with journalists is crucial. PR pros spread awareness to promote products and ideas that support their position to convince an audience worldwide to buy. Its pros should stay abreast of the latest public relations trends and have a network of journalists to whom they can pitch their PR storytelling to promote product stories and bring awareness.

More and more businesses realize the importance of digital PR every day.

They are using PR to spread awareness of their products and ideas. Through PR, they build trust, generate engagement, and form relationships with their prospects, who will become lifelong customers and their biggest brand ambassadors.

To make the most of your outreach, look at the latest trends in PR.

Let’s Discover the Best-performing Public Relations Trends

Public relations trends change all the time. To stay ahead of your competitors, you should stay updated on PR developments and learn from others’ mistakes.

Increased Use of AI

ChatGPT, as a language model developed by OpenAI, can play a role in public relations in several ways. ChatGPT can assist in generating content such as press releases, pitches, speeches, articles, and social media posts, thus freeing up time and resources for PR professionals.

It’s important to note that while ChatGPT can assist in these areas, it should be different from human PR professionals. AI makes too many factual mistakes – look at what happened when CNET used it to write articles.

OpenAI has acknowledged that its language model prioritizes a smooth and natural language flow over strict accuracy. Nonetheless, it’s important to note that all writing, whether produced by AI or humans, must undergo fact-checking and editing. However, using AI writing can significantly speed up the process as it can quickly generate draft content that can then be reviewed and refined by a human editor. Thus, fact-checking a blog post or news release produced by AI is still more efficient than creating it from scratch without technology.

The nuances and complexities of public relations require a human touch, and ChatGPT should be used to support and enhance our efforts. The nuances and complexities of public relations require a human touch, and ChatGPT should be used to support and improve their efforts.

Storytelling

PR Storytelling remains the hottest thing in public relations trends.

Creative storytelling is not new. Every minute some new product is created, and only some products can attract the attention of journalists. Creative storytelling, in the case of product promotions, means creating a story that depicts how miserable life would be without your product or service.

One should have a well-constructed story to attract journalists, as this interests journalists. PR storytelling is crucial as it explains to the customer the background of the product, why they need it, and how it adds to their own life.

Telling someone they need a particular coffee versus where it grew, how their ancestors brewed the same leaf once, and how they can become a part of this cycle of nature and enjoyment has a noticeably different impact.

Therefore, storytelling in a PR pitch is the fastest way of achieving results that elevate brand exposure while supporting the marketing and sales objectives.

To get started with PR storytelling, you can ask yourself a couple of questions:

• What is the background story behind this information?
• What’s the bigger context?
• How is this process going to benefit the reader or listener?
• What is the journey it’s going to help them on?
• How will it help their life?

You’re making the reader answer this question in their minds:

“Why on earth should I read this, and why do I need to get this product myself?”

According to this hot public relations trend, you must create a journey through the information. Then take them on a journey where A happens, which leads to B, and eventually to C. Journalists want quality content for their readers, and once you share that with them, you can expect much higher results!

Voice Content & Podcasts

Voice search is officially here! The announcement says that people bought over 100 million Alexa devices this year. Voice content and podcasts are getting more popular daily, and as such, the idea of a PR podcast was born.

These virtual home assistants are no longer only used for playing music or turning on other electronic devices. An increasing number of people use them to listen to the news and additional information. A PR podcast is rapidly becoming an ideal tool for lifelong readers, and this is something that PR pros should consider in 2024.

Relevant and Timely Pitch

A relevant and timely pitch to the proper journalist is always hot.

Doing your research and finding the best journalists interested in the niche you are presenting is very important.

Never pitch a culture journalist about your following new tech product. You’re wasting not only your time but also their time. Just imagine how irritating it would be if you were a journalist with all their interests listed on social media – most of them do – and you receive a barrage of pitches every day that have nothing to do with you!

So, do your research!

Don’t send long pitches that make them yawn. Send a pitch without unnecessary fluff, personalize it, and include all the additional information in the press release. So once they read the pitch, they will quickly understand whether they want to continue investigating the topic.

Earned & Owned Media

In 2024, the mixture of earned and owned media will be as hot as ever.

Owned media is all about your channels, such as those on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, or it can be the website that you have.

Earned media is when the press and public shares your content and speak about your brand. That’s why this process’s name is earning your product, efforts, or something else – you’ve earned your space on their pages, potentially voluntarily and completely free!

This will be huge in 2024, and one thing that matters to earned media is very much connected to the previous point. Relevant research is the key to getting earned media interested. Sending the right PR pitch about the right product to the right journalists can bring you media mentions which can give more credibility to your product/service and bring awareness.

Public Relations Trends Not Effective in 2024

Equally important to understanding the public relations trends is considering what is not hot in Digital PR in 2024.

Avoiding these things will let you skirt the media faux-pas that could diminish your otherwise good chances of getting featured and, in the worst cases, actually get you negative PR!

Spam

It doesn’t matter if it’s 2020, 2019, 1995, or 2195 – Spam is something that is NOT. Every. Single. Time.

No one likes being spammed, particularly journalists whose inboxes are full 24/7.

To attract a journalist’s attention, follow-ups are a great tool. But be careful; spamming them all the time with emails is something other than what they will like. After sending your PR pitch, your follow-ups are essential for sharing new information about the product you want them to cover. It can include updates regarding product features that have changed or something new.

Spamming them every day and expecting them to reply is not something that will happen.

In PR, patience is essential, as journalists are busy. Imagine yourself in their place. Your calendar is already full, you have new assignments from your editor, and someone keeps popping up in your inbox promoting their product/service (more about promotional content later on).

Some interesting statistics about follow-ups:

Survey results show that most (73%) journalists are OK with receiving a follow-up to a PR pitch they didn’t respond to. Only 12% would prefer not to receive any follow-up.

Pitching Irrelevant Stories

While PR storytelling is essential, pitching irrelevant stories is the next thing you should NOT do. Here, once again, we touch upon the importance of research.

Before sending a pitch about your product, you should explore whether your pitch is relevant to that journalist. Do NOT read an article that a journalist wrote in 2010 and decide they will be interested in covering your product because he wrote something similar back then.

Journalists tend to change their topics from time to time, and a simple Google search will help you understand the current topics a journalist covers.

The #prfail hashtag is viral on Twitter, and one example is Caitlin Kelly’s (New York Times) about irrelevant stories:

Impersonal Bulk Outreach

Unpersonalized and bulk outreach are among the big NOT to-dos.

Don’t send non-personalized pitches. Take time to understand what’s in a journalist’s beat and investigate what their audience is interested in. When you know all this, you can proudly send your pitch and wait for them to respond.

Making it evident that you know their coverage areas and showing in the pitch that you’re well aware of what will interest their audience can change the game. And this is something that people remember.

Even if they reject the offer of covering your product, the next time you pitch them, they’ll remember you and open your email more willingly. Examples of taking a look at from #prfails regarding this point are the following:

Me Content

Content that is too promotional is the next no-no.

It’s essential to realize what the job of journalists is. Journalists are still waiting for your next product promotion. They are not there waiting to increase the sales of your product.

Journalists seek stories and quality/trustworthy content for their readers.

We are pitching journalists as we want to provide value to their audiences and help them fill in their editorial calendars. And it’s not always about us.

Of course, you want to bring awareness to your next project, but if you mention your brand all the time and sound overly salesy, it will not work. First, you should tell them what the highlights of your product are and how their audience will benefit.

Giving them valuable and quality content is what matters. Talk about your brand, its relevance to them, and why they should cover it.

With these public relations trends, traditional PR is out the door!

More and more businesses understand the benefits of the latest trends in PR, and they are employing it to spread awareness about their companies and leave their footprint in this huge and competitive market.

Never give up, read about and follow the latest trends in PR, implement, and most importantly, think out of the box!

OR… think like there is no box 😉