Whether you had cause to pat yourself on the back for a job well done or swallow bitter pills of defeat as the case may be for your performances in 2018, you have a new year ahead of you to do something new.
If you run a business or manage communication of a sort for a client or an organisation, you may be thinking about what you need to keep in mind as you plan and execute your communication activities for the year.
We thought we should talk to a few professionals and get their perspective on this and share with you. Hopefully, you may find a couple of their thoughts may be of some use.
1. Stay ahead of the news curve
To understand how central this approach is to an organisation's image and information management, PR managers need to remember how news works. One analogy I often use is this: news is about the planes that didn't takeoff or land safely, not the ones that did. News organisations typically won't seek out information on the planes that took off and landed safely. So it is on PR managers or consultants of organisations to sell their organisation's positive stories; how many planes took off and landed safely? How many passengers (clients, customers) were served excellently in the past year or quarter? How many clients, customers received loyalty bonuses? In 2019, get that information out before negativity hits and you will find out you won't just be playing catch up.
2. Selfie Time…
Head, Media Buying, Planning and Public Relations at Bluebird Communications Limited
Selfies are great way consumers express themselves. It is becoming part of our culture as Nigerians.
Phone manufacturers boast of their products' amazing front camera resolutions to capture great selfies. This is so because they understand that consumers are gradually moving from selfie pictures to selfie videos to share on their Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp and even Facebook statuses. These selfie videos are attracting high user interest on social media. Brands that want to remain relevant to their target online must create content around this online habit to drive engagement.
Smart brands need to take cognizance of this trend and include selfie video content as part of their marketing strategy for 2019.
3. Measurement
Client Services Manager at Prize Communications Ltd
https://www.linkedin.com/in/funso-adeolu-mild-anipr-6203064/
In Public Relations, indeed in the field of integrated marketing communications, "measurement" is as important to the ecosystem as it is to the tailoring industry. We have all heard horror stories or seen what happens when a tailor makes a mistake with a customer's measurement. The same thing applies to Public Relations. In 2010, a group of PR experts met in Barcelona to discuss PR measurement and came up with what is now known as the "Barcelona principles".
The Barcelona principle basically recognizes that setting an objective and measuring its outcomes (achieving your set objective or goal) is a much more preferable way to measure as against just measuring output (number of newspaper appearances or posts you achieve). As a professional embarking on a campaign for a client, it is imperative to set an objective or goal you wish to attain and to carry out measurement (or evaluation) on the effectiveness of your campaign in reaching your target audience or achieving your objectives.
There should be a set timeline for evaluating the results of each campaign. Luckily, for digital campaigns there are a variety of tools across different platforms that aid in measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of your campaign. Measurement helps you identify what is working, improve or identify what is NOT working but more importantly, it helps justify your client's investment and also validate your contributions to his or her business.
4. Social listening
"Measurement" should not be confused with "social listening" even though social listening can be used as a tool for measurement. The Trackmaven marketing dictionary defines social listening as "the process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand and industry online."
This means any conversation about a brand or company in the online or social media space is termed "social listening". A company can monitor its digital conversations to identify what its customers want, what their complaints are and how they can better serve their customers. It is important to point out however, that social listening is focused more on individuals' opinions, suggestions and comments and does not necessarily give information or insight about the effectiveness of a campaign. A host of automated tools can be deployed to help achieve this, analysing keywords, sentiment and influence.
However, it CAN impact directly on the types of products or services which a company provides to its consumers. An example of social listening can be the introduction of the Lagos state traffic radio after the unprecedented success of an online handle that helped Lagos state commuters navigate the busy streets of Lagos state. The state government listened to the online sentiments of the people and provided its own solution to navigating traffic in the state.
Social listening is basically used by organizations to respond to comments, queries, introduce new products and direct customers to the correct channels to escalate or manage more serious requests.
As more and more consumers migrate online, brands and organisations will do well to invest in setting up systems to enhance their social listening competencies in 2019.
5. Social Media ...still rising
Executive Director and PR Lead at Drive 5 Ghana Ltd.
Africa's internet usage keeps increasing and according to the Internet World Stats, internet penetration in Africa stood at 35.2 percent as at end of 2017, a better performance that the paltry 11 percent half a decade earlier. With this usage has come an exponential growth in the usage of Social Media.
Social Media has, undoubtedly, had the biggest and most disruptive impact on communication in the last decade. The advent of Social Media has radically changed the way people use and consume news and content. Businesses and corporates that have failed to leverage on the positive impact of Social Media have learnt a bit too late that they are missing out on a communication revolution.
Whereas those on the upper side of the demographic curve have been slow to buy into Social Media, the youth were quick to see the huge potential that Social Media offers.
But things are changing quickly and now Social Media offers the biggest marketing platform for most businesses. That space has since ceased to be a place for sharing funny videos and praying for simple 'likes'.
People and businesses are increasing their spend on Social Media and are accordingly reaping the benefits. Instructively, the positive trends that shaped 2018 are bound to pick up more steam in 2019. Trends in the communication space vis-à-vis Social Media are fluid, but Africa seems driven favourably towards one platform: Perched atop the pack of Social Media usage in Africa remains Facebook and your strategy will do well to recognise that.
6. Live Video
As Facebook continues to dominate, the Social Media giant has strategically inculcated Live Video into it feeds. Incidentally, Live Video was the biggest trend setter in 2018 with more people preferring it to traditional blogs and advertisement. This 'new craze' will continue to shape news and content consumption in Africa in 2019 and should be in your list of tactics to utilize this year.
7. Influencer Marketing
One other trend that is sure to gain even more traction in 2019 is Influencer Marketing. Though a traditional strategy that goes way back, the advent of Social Media has reinvented the way businesses deploy the influencer marketing tactic. It is no more the most popular person in society who can be used as an influencer. Anyone with a huge followership on Social Media or an immersed followership within a niche can be extremely useful in that role.
Facebook's 'Branded Content' option also helps extend the relationships between brands and influencers. With this and the strategic importance of the 'hashtag', marketing and communication have evolved so rapidly and communicators should position themselves to leverage on this more in 2019.
8. Fake News
Whilst businesses should stand ready to tap into the positive side of Social Media, one by-product of the internet which has gained monumental steam in the Social Media space and for which businesses must be wary of is 'Fake News', a term made even more popular by President Donald Trump of the United States of America. Corporate users of Social Media need to be proactive and must deploy tools and resources to counter any adverse effects of 'Fake News' as this can unmake and destroy brands.
Dedicating more time and resources in 2019 to building and managing owned digital media channels will be a useful strategy that can combat fake news when it hits your brand.
9. Measurement, ...again
Public Relations Measurement awareness in Nigeria grew from 37 percent in 2017 to 54 percent in 2018, with 35 percent usage of a PR Measurement program.
This is likely going to grow even more in 2019 as the need for brands and organisations to adopt independent measurement and evaluation of PR efforts executed by agencies. The objectivity of media analysis inherent in the use of independent measurement agencies will help deepen the credibility of PR campaign results and the value of PR.
So, if you are looking for how to convince your clients or employers about why they should spend so much on PR in 2019, including that the activities and results will be measured by an independent third party could do the trick. One thing that always works with decision makers is independent data and analysis.
10. Do even more mobile...
With increased Internet penetration - over 103 million Nigerians using the Internet in 2018, according to the Nigeria Communications Commission (up from 28 million users in 2012) - and the increase in usage of smartphones by Nigerians (21 million users expected in 2019, which is 3 million users more than the number in 2017), brands will increase their use of online/digital promotions via smartphones. And while there are no official figures yet that aggregate Nigeria-centric ad-buying patterns, you can bet that brands, large and small, will increase their spending in this channel in 2019.
Advertising money will as usual, always follow the audience.
These online promotions will mostly still be in form of promoted posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well as Google display and search ads.
Promoting your content on these networks through their mobile apps will be the choice for most communication experts because these apps are being enabled to make use of increasingly intelligent technologies for better user targetting. For instance, the apps used by the above social media track the location of users using geofencing technology, which helps them target their ads based on location.
Smartphones are also becoming better modeled to serve as hosts for artificial intelligence (AI) software that ultimately optimise users' experience and increase their "dependency" on the phones for an increasing number of daily operations. The increase in processing power of mobile devices is also leading to increase in their use for Augmented and Virtual Reality applications.
These trends all suggest that in 2019, it makes sense for marketing communication and PR practitioners to move their mobile promotions strategy off the bench and fully into a central position in the field of play.
Note that these are just a few key trends and tips to keep in mind. They are not exhaustive and we will likely update this list as the year unfolds and slaps us with reality checks.
Or if there is any that you feel we left out, please do add it as a comment below too.
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