How to prepare for what’s coming down the path for PR pros

Ten years ago you might have read most of the publications relevant to your business. If you were committed to public relations, you’d spend time cultivating relationships with various relevant reporters.

When you had a story you wanted to tell, you’d work on it with your agency until it achieved as much newsworthiness as you could wring out of it. Then you or your agency would embark on a media outreach campaign — in person, if you could.

If you worked hard enough at it, your story might actually get printed … on paper. Maybe not in the publication of your choice, but often by an outlet somewhere on your target media list.

How quaint.

Technology blew up the media landscape, public trust in media, and that analog playbook. Today’s communications professional has to fight fire with fire by embracing technology and data.

You need to understand your audience, which consists of machines, not people. Ok, machines, then people. For your story even to find its way to the people you are attempting to address, it typically needs to find its way through a jungle of algorithms, content optimizers, recommendation engines and filters of all sorts.