We are facing exciting times in PR, with new developments constantly on the horizon. As we venture into this new period, we need to diversify to take full advantage of the PR trends 2020 will offer.
As you’ll see in this post, developments such as voice search optimisation and brand transparency has been widely embraced by PR pros, with rave reviews.
OK Google, play ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’
Throughout 2019 the use of smartphone assistants and smart speakers, such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Cortana, and Google Home, has skyrocketed and shows no sign of being a passing trend. Earlier this year, Amazon announced that over 100 million Alexa devices have been sold. However, these devices are no longer simply being used for blasting out your favourite music hits and experts (Comscore) predicts that by 2020, 50% of all online searches will be voice-activated.
The days of having to scroll through pages of results to find answers to your queries will soon be a thing of the past. With voice search officially taking over, it’s imperative to have optimised content specific to voice search. Second or third-ranked place will become irrelevant as voice-command searches offer only the top solution in seconds. This trend will peak in 2020 and beyond, so it’s smart to incorporate it into your marketing strategy by ensuring that your content meets the requirements to be ranked as the top search result for both online and voice search.
Grab the right audience
According to Greentarget, journalists are inundated with press releases every day and as a result, 69% spend less than a minute reading them. Producing engaging content that is automatically ready to publish is invaluable for journalists and provides the opportunity to gain coverage.
Using infographics is an effective way of presenting content with both consumers and publications. Infographics make complex information easily digestible with the use of images, statistics, and minimal text.
The internet is flooded with cookie-cutter templates of visuals that are often populated with paragraph-long blocks of text and visuals with no meaning; so it’s important to capture the audience you desire by accurately utilising design tools that are available to you.
Key infographic trends for 2020 promise a substantial shift from the bold colours used previously, to a muted colour pallet and soft gradients, embracing abstract and imaginative illustrations, genuine photos instead of basic unoriginal stock images and better eye-catching brand animations.
According to Webdam, posts that include images receive 650% higher engagement than text-only posts. And visuals using colour increase people’s willingness to read a piece by 80% (Xerox). This presents a huge opportunity for marketers as visuals can be used in a range of traditional and digital PR such as billboards, blogs and of course print.
Brand transparency matters
Thanks to the evolution of the internet and smart devices, any information is easily accessible within the palm of our hands. As a result, customers are more aware than ever before and aren’t afraid to hold any business accountable for their actions across global platforms. The rise of social media has encouraged this behaviour, often becoming the soap box that allows customers to challenge companies and their reputations. Transparency is the only solution.
With the younger generation becoming more environmentally aware and conscious of ethical practises, brands must adopt an internal culture of transparency for the benefit of their employees and customers. Today’s customer wants to know everything about the products they buy – where they come from, who makes them, and what they’re made of.
Information should be shared openly and not hidden out of sight from staff and certainly not from the public eye. When revealed with honesty, within expertly written PR resources, mistakes and failures have the capability to increase credibility and build trust.
Wrap-up
If you haven’t already, ensure all content is optimised for online and voice search and caters to the changing technological landscape, enforce graphics and design techniques as a fresh alternative, and get rid of secrets to gain loyalty.
As these techniques lead the way into 2020, we must adopt the latest PR trends to stay ahead of the curve.
