It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of Ketchum’s inaugural Digital & Social Almanac.
The 60-page Almanac has been a community project in the truest sense of the term. Ketchum experts from Beijing to Toronto and Chicago to Vienna collaborated to identify the top 100 digital and social new stories from last year and produced 17 opinion pieces on the state of digital and social media, marketing and public relations for the year ahead (click to tweet).
Looking across these commentaries there are seven clear digital and social trends that neatly characterize modern public relations for 2016:
1. Influencers
Powerful influencers are emerging on the Internet in every market. It makes planning and creating scale tricky, but building relationships hasn’t changed.
2. Paid and earned
Integrating paid content into earned campaigns makes your campaigns work harder and delivers an improved return on investment. Influencers, algorithms and amplification are all compelling reasons for paid integration.
3. Authenticity
Successful organizations build trust and reputation on the Internet by being open, candid and timely, just like regular people behave offline.
4. The Internet is people
Organizations need to get out of the way and let their people build relationships via the Internet and social networks, again like people do in regular lives.
5. Video
If you’re not using video you need to grab a camera and crack on. The Internet adores live streaming and short-form video.
6. Social platforms mature
The social media eco-system is maturing around Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and WhatsApp, but don’t you dare underestimate China’s Weixin. Watch for further backend integration of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The dataset will rival Google’s planning capabilities.
7. Communities
Niche communities built around a common purpose are the most influential form of media. We’ve included a powerful case study of our own learning and development platform.
We hope you enjoy Ketchum’s 2016 Almanac. I’d like to thank everyone that contributed to this project. You’ll meet them as you work your way through the almanac.
If you’d like to talk about working with your organization to tackle any of the issues raised please don’t hesitate to contact me directly or comment below.
