PRCA Digital PR and Communications Report: "Digital PR moves fast"

In the past 12 months digital PR has seen investment in content and paid social media but cuts in SEO and social listening.

It’s hard to unpick a clear story from the PRCA’s Annual Digital PR and Communications Report. Digital PR moves fast as Danny Whatmough, chair of the PRCA Digital Group suggests in his introduction.

The good news is that practitioners are firmly embracing social and owned media alongside earned as a means of engagement with an audience or public. The use of social platforms and the creation of content, notably video, are both up year-on-year.

Oddly social media listening, used by practitioners as a means of planning and alerting, has fallen. Other areas that have seen a reduction in budget are organic and paid social media optimisation.

However, paid social media is a significant growth area. It’s indicative of the fact that outside of customer service social media engagement has largely become a paid activity.

Brands on social media

The main reasons for brands having a social media presence are to drive awareness of what they do (86%), to drive wider audience reach (71%), to increase brand awareness (65%), and to use it as a customer service platform (40%). These issues remain consistent with last year’s findings.

Role of digital PR

The PR and communications department takes the clear lead on digital and social media activities. 61% of respondents say that their PR and communications department are responsible for digital and social media content, this is up by 4% since last year.

Investment in digital PR

Spending on digital and social media has increased slightly since last year, 53% of respondents say that their budget has increased over the last 12 months. When asked about their spending in the next 12 months, 49% say budgets will increase and 44% say that they will stay the same. Only 2% of respondents say their budgets will decrease.

Areas of investment in digital PR

The main areas in which brands are spending their digital and social media budget are: video-based content (58%), paid social media activity (58%), and web design and build (47%). Video-based content has increased in importance since last year and is up from 49%.

Budget cuts for organic and paid SEO, and social listening

Brands have decreased their spending quite significantly in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which decreased by 10%. PPC (paid search) budgets have decreased by 7%. Budgets for monitoring and listening to customers have fallen by 9% this year.

Agency offerings

The leading services that agencies are offering their clients are online media outreach/relations (69%), text-based content (69%), and social network strategy (69%). Online media outreach has dropped from 83% since last year.

Clients expect PR agencies to deliver on the following services: online press release distribution (51%), digital crisis management (49%), image-based content (46%), and social influencer outreach (43%).

Most used social media platforms

The most popular social media platforms amongst in-house brands are Twitter (90%), down 4% year-on-year, and Facebook (81%), up 9% year-on-year. This is followed by LinkedIn (76%), YouTube (69%), and Instagram (63%).

Opportunity

Agencies are looking for more education in augmented reality/ virtual reality (32%), voice/search apps (25%), and chatbots (24%). Voice/search apps have taken over chatbots as one of the areas in which agencies need more education.

The areas in which brands need more education are social influencer outreach, video-based content, and digital crisis management. The need for education in video-based content correlates with the increases in budgets in that area.

Monitoring and listening to customers was also one of the top areas in which brands wanted more education in contrast to a decline in investment in this area. It suggests that brands have invested in tools that they aren’t using.

Methodology

Ginger Research partnered with the PRCA to survey more than 400 agency and in-house PR professionals using an online survey.