PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Summary

From October 21, 2009 to November 3, 2009, Vocus surveyed approximately 1,800 public

relations professionals about their perceptions of PR planning for 2010 amid a changing and

dynamic landscape.

Key findings include the following:

Trying times. 64 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that PR

planning will be more difficult in 2010.

Cautious optimism. 42 percent indicated PR budgets will remain flat in 2010, though

one-third said they anticipated their budgets increasing slightly (24 percent) or

significantly (5 percent).

Innovate and invest in technology. 63 percent are planning to refine processes in

2010 while 51 percent will invest in new technology in order to do more with less.

Social media to be a key focus in 2010. 80 percent of respondents say they will focus

on social media in 2010; multimedia is not far behind with 63 percent, while measuring

results, SEO (search engine optimization) and viral campaigns trail with 58, 57 and 56

percent, respectively.

PR increasingly important to marketing. 64 percent believe that PR will become

increasingly important in the overall marketing mix in 2010.

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Introduction

The public relations industry has experienced tremendous change in 2009 and social media is

often cited as a major catalyst behind this change. The impact has been nothing short of

substantial. Social media is changing how PR professionals think about its role in every aspect

from influence to communication and it certainly will have an impact on PR planning in 2010.

To gain better insight into the perceptions and concerns of the PR practitioner, Vocus surveyed

US-based marketing PR professionals and analyzed the results with help from Deirdre

Breakenridge, president of PFS Marketwyse and co-author of “Putting the Public Back in Public

Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR.”

A total of 1,836 marketing and public relations professionals responded to the survey, though

it’s important to note that every respondent did not fully answer every question. Still, each

question had about 1,800 respondents and we believe the results are as compelling as they are

insightful. This white paper is focused on analyzing those results.

Demographic questions confirm that the sample survey is primarily PR professionals or

marketing professionals who perform PR functions. A plurality – 41 percent – comes from

corporations while the next largest base of respondents most closely identifies with the non-

profit sector – 28 percent. PR agencies accounted for 16 percent of respondents, education

and government follow with 9 and 6 percent respectively (see Chart 1).

Chart 1; N = 1,782

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

This survey was sent to both marketing and public relations professionals and the next

demographic question indicated how closely respondents identify with specific functions that are

typically associated with public relations. In tallying the percentage of people selecting 8-10 for

each of these questions, we can see that respondents more closely identified with core PR

functions (see Chart 2).

Public Relations: 58

Media Relations: 51

Marketing Communications: 50

Strategic Communications: 47

Corporate Communications: 45

Content Management: 33

Advertising: 24

SEO: 15

Social Media: 28

Public Affairs: 21

We found it especially interesting that the percentage of responses is much higher if we tallied

this count by adding up those that ranked each function with a ranking of 6 to 10. It was not

surprising to see the number of professionals who view their role as strategic communications.

This is an important note given the recent claims by some news and blogging outlets that “PR is

Dead” which we believe is most commonly associated purely with media relations, when in fact

media relations is just one component of public relations.

Chart 2; Number of responses in sequence = 1,047, 1,085,

1,045, 1,115, 1,097, 1,127, 1,054, 1,061, 1,064

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Planning more difficult in 2010?

It’s no surprise that 64 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that PR planning

in 2010 will more difficult (see Chart 3).

Communication professionals are clearly aware of the challenges and want to adapt and evolve

with the changing landscape; however, many are finding that planning is more difficult. This is

likely symptomatic of overall employee attitudes toward social media (faddish, or not to be taken

seriously), a paucity of resources, or even a lack of senior management support. This prevents,

or at least makes it more challenging, to actually incorporate new mediums including social

media into the PR planning process.

It is surprising that one-fifth, or 20 percent, disagree that PR planning in 2010 will be more

difficult, though it’s equally important to point out very few (1 percent) strongly disagree. In

considering the context there are two probable explanations: 1) these are early adopters, they

have a good handle on the changes and will easily, even enthusiastically, incorporate new

media into their planning process, or 2) they are so far behind, they don’t know what they don’t

know. Our instincts tell us that the former is more realistic than the latter especially given the

volume of social media debate in PR circles over the last 18 months.

Chart 3; N = 1,824

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Budgets: cautiously optimistic

A plurality of respondents – 42 percent – indicated that they expect PR budgets will remain flat

in 2010, yet we believe this is also reason for cautious optimism (see Chart 4).

Given that 24 percent believe PR budgets may increase slightly, and another 5 percent believe

PR budgets will increase significantly, in aggregate this means that nearly one-third of

respondents believe their budgets will improve in 2010. This optimism is tempered by the fact

that a near-equal percentage say it will decline by similar measures. Still, these results are far

better than we might have anticipated.

For those organizations that see their budgets increasing, we believe that an increased focus on

social media is causal. Organizations do seem to be interested in investing in social media –

one outside study found 94 percent of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment

in social media tools.1 If PR is viewed as leading organizational social media efforts, it’s

reasonable to believe that resources will be allocated accordingly.

1 eWeek: Study: 94% of Enterprises Will Invest in Social Media Despite Recession, October 7, 2009

Chart 4; N = 1,829

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Investing in process innovation & technology

When asked how PR professionals will adjust to change in 2010, two answers stood out above

all others: 63 percent are planning to refine processes in 2010 to find new efficiencies and 51

percent will invest in new technology (see Chart 5).

The other standout is the percentage of respondents that are going to leave things the same:

65 percent for staffing, 53 percent for professional development, 58 percent for internal staff, 51

percent for use of outside experts. Especially given the current economic climate, the old

mantra, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” seems to be in effect. What’s interesting is that PR will

have to do more with less – especially for those organizations indicating that their budgets

would remain flat or will decline. In this case it’s logical to expect to see maximum efficiencies

and possibly a shift of resources toward technology.

Chart 5; Number of responses in sequence = 1,791, 1,806,

1,810, 1,796, 1,803, 1,798, 1,807

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

PR to focus on social media, multimedia and search engine optimization (SEO) in 2010

Clearly social media is a standout with 80 percent of respondents saying they will do more;

multimedia is not far behind with 63 percent, while measuring results (58 percent), SEO (57

percent) and viral campaigns (56 percent) follow close behind (see Chart 6).

It’s excellent to see that SEO has come into new focus, though it’s not surprising to see a high

rating with respect to leveraging video and multimedia. These are familiar areas to PR

professionals who have known since the onset of the video news release (VNR) and the

multimedia release that a visual story is a powerful story. With respect to the 80 percent who

believe their organization will focus more closely on social media, we’ve concluded that this

strong focus will directly impact the PR professional’s role and responsibilities.

It is interesting to note that 13 percent say they will do fewer activities related to traditional

media relations, although an overwhelming majority will do the same or more in 2010. We see

a note of caution in these results because while traditional media relations is still clearly

important to PR professionals, the industry is collectively learning how to integrate both

traditional and social media programs into their planning. The issue at hand is that many are

trying to force fit social media into a traditional model, in which case monitoring/listening,

communication/content creation, distribution and measurement require a different set of tools

and skill set for the PR professional. Indeed these conclusions were substantiated later in this

Chart 6; Number of responses in sequence = 1,804, 1,807,

1,807,1,807,1,802,1,807, 1,797, 1,803, 1,803, 1,797

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

survey when we asked an open-ended question, “What is the SINGLE most important thing you,

as a PR professional, will do differently in 2010 than you did in 2009?” Social media was

referenced nearly 600 times of the 1,571 responses we received.

A sample of these responses follows:

Produce more multimedia/rich content appropriate for a wide variety of platforms and

uses, from events to web content.

Measure my social media timing against news cycles.

More cross-marketing collaboration.

Incorporate social networking into marketing plan.

More time on social media efforts.

Work smarter and make dollar go farther.

Develop compelling multi-media content for distribution.

Combine the use of traditional media with social media, which we're just starting to do.

Rethink social media strategies. The social media fire hose is too big with too much

spam. Pinpoint messaging and much greater efforts need to be spent in the area to

target market demographics and understanding.

Do more with less. That is, I will continue to provide a high level of media relations and

related expertise as the technology I must work with continues to fall behind.

Coordinate more efficiently with the marketing departments in order to fully utilize the

limited resources of both areas.

Further integrate social marketing techniques and tools into our overall PR mix.

Sell social media marketing services in conjunction with traditional PR services in order

to maximize results.

Train others to know what I know about integrating traditional and new media.

Learn to leverage the social media "spread" to our advantage for increasing awareness,

donations and clients.

Focus much more on social media and experiment with ways it can help meet our PR

goals.

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

Learn more about social media and explore options to increase communication with

targeted audiences and measure results.

PR will become more important in the marketing mix

A clear majority of PR practitioners – 64 percent – believe that PR will become increasingly

important in the overall marketing mix in 2010 (see Chart 7). These results reveal a very positive

outlook as to the health of the PR industry in the eyes of professionals.

With all the changes social media has brought, it’s likely marketing departments turned to the

professionals they thought best suited to handle it – or that in the vacuum, PR pros eagerly

stepped up and instinctively knew what to do given their experience in working with editorial

contacts. Moreover, it’s interesting to see how the lines are blurring between PR, marketing and

interactive marketing functions. PR people are a new hybrid of professionals learning to

incorporate viral marketing, relationship marketing, social marketing and even web analytics into

their roles and responsibilities.

Chart 7; N = 1,808

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

PR tools currently in use

Given what Vocus provides we were well aware that news monitoring is a key tool used by PR

professionals, but were a little surprised that this category ranked higher in this survey than

social media monitoring (see Chart 8).

We believe that PR professionals are using tools to monitor social media – however those tools

are free and the process of monitoring them is informal or ad hoc as opposed to an enterprise-

class tool providing a comprehensive and integrated view.

Separately it surprised us that online newsrooms only logged 36 percent. Newsrooms are

among the most frequented sections of a Web site and are still important for providing key

stakeholders with relevant information beyond the traditional media.

Chart 8; N = 1,783

PR Planning 2010 Survey Results

About this survey

The results of this survey were presented to an audience during a live Webinar on November 12, 2009 titled, “PR Planning Considerations for 2010,” featuring guest speaker Deirdre Breakenridge. All respondents to this survey and Webinar registrants were provided with a copy of the results in the form of this white paper. Find Vocus on these Social Media sites:

Twitter: @Vocus

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Vocus

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1928001

About Vocus

Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) is a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations

management. Our web-based software suite helps organizations of all sizes to fundamentally

change the way they communicate with both the media and the public, optimizing their public

relations and increasing their ability to measure its impact. Our on-demand software addresses

the critical functions of public relations including media relations, news distribution and news

monitoring. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a secure, scalable application and

system architecture, which allows our customers to eliminate expensive up-front hardware and

software costs and to quickly deploy and adopt our on-demand software. Vocus is used by more

than 4,000 organizations worldwide and is available in seven languages. Vocus is based in

Lanham, MD with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information please visit

http://www.vocus.com or call 800.345.5572.