[Infographic] The #DigitalPR Challenge

PR, communications and marketing managers are under increasing pressure to deliver but are still not seen as contributing to business growth, according to the second Digital PR: from challenges and opportunities survey report.

PR technology and newsroom specialists, Mynewsdesk,  surveyed 1231 PR, communications and marketing professionals in July 2015. 

The report details the trends, helping communicators to benchmark their activities. It’s also punctuated with tips on how to start tackling the most persistent ones from experts including:

• Luke Kintigh, Global Content and Media Strategist, Intel
• Gaynor Reid VP Communications, Accor Hotels, Asia Pacifc
• Joe Pulizzi Founder, Content Marketing Institute and Author, Content Inc, 

Meeting growing business expectations despite stagnant budgets; managing an expanding scope of work; keeping up-to-date without training, and allocating resource effectively whilst struggling to demonstrate the value of activities are amongst the key challenges.

And it’s within these challenges that the real opportunities are.

A small change to PR management, or seizing the opportunity to experiment with a new content format could be a step change that starts to simplify workflows, differentiate content to cut-through the noise, or start setting up a measurement framework to help determine where to allocate precious, limited resources.

Key findings include:

• Regardless of their location, communicators are working across more areas than ever before.
  To do their job effectively, they must work smarter – not harder – by developing a streamlined digital PR management. 84% are working across more areas than before.
• Working out where to dedicate PR resource is still a challenge.
  70% of communicators agreed that one of their biggest challenges is working out where to dedicate PR resources for maximum impact
• Difficulty proving ROI as outputs rather than outcomes still dominate.
  It seems that communicators are still struggling to quantify the ROI of digital and social activities. This is creating a hurdle to gaining buy-in from C-level executives.

  Financial ROI is only used as a measure of success by 18% of respondents, yet 91% of respondents rely on content views to measure the effectiveness of digital activities.

“There are challenges aplenty, but with these challenges come exciting new opportunities to reshape your PR and communications strategies. To those who are ready to embrace these opportunities, I hope you share our excitement about your path and the possibilities that lay ahead. One thing is for sure, we cannot stay married to yesterday and we cannot be afraid of tomorrow” commented Jonathan Bean, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Mynewsdesk.

With digital there isn’t a finish line, the pace of change is not slowing. We must fail fast and change things!