The future of PR: 5 predictions from eBay and Edelman

At South By Southwest this year, Edelman Digital’s David Armano and eBay’s chief blogger Richard Brewer-Hay led a discussion titled, “Why PR’s future May Not Look Like PR.”

During the panel, five major trends emerged. Here they are:

1. PR will take place on a smaller scale. Armano used the term “micro-interactions” to describe the types of communication touch-points that PR pros will likely need to focus on. Basically, we’ll be communicating on smaller scales; audience mindset won’t be as effective as individual mindset. The prominence of social media has created shorter attention spans and the idea that each statement or problem is worthy of real-time feedback.

2. PR and customer service—so happy together. In some ways, customer service has always been a business practice related to PR, even though the two are usually managed separately. In a social media world—where bad customer service can become a PR nightmare—the two need to have a closer relationship, perhaps even exist in the same department. After all, consumers don’t care about the internal structure of your company; they just want someone to hear and respond to their complaint.