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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Friday, 29.03.2024, 07:37
The year 2017 in the corporate communication field: putting things in order, analysing and pushing the boundaries
1. Real bloggers and celebrities
In the past year, many
communications professionals with unprecedented force rushed to develop
cooperation with bloggers and virtual celebrities, and generously endowed
almost every owner of more or less popular Instagram profile. In 2017 more
thorough approach to the selection of partners for cooperation will be applied.
It is important to take into account the reputation of the blogger, the engagement
rate of one’s publications and subscribers’ quality.
Today you can get thousands
of fake followers with empty profiles for a couple of hundred euros. Together
with my colleagues we noticed the suspicious growth in popularity of the pair
of active people who had a thousand subscribers yesterday, 6000 today and 13
thousand tomorrow. It happened in the period when nothing was posted in their
profiles. So we started analysing the social networks of celebrities and
bloggers who we cooperate with much more seriously. I think it will be a
general trend.
In this regard,
bloggers themselves will have to become more professional in collaboration with
brands that are expecting their ability to formulate the possibility of
cooperation, proper implementation of the commitments, billing, and timely
reports.
Legal and ethical restrictions to
reflect a cooperation between virtual celebrities and brands will gradually develop.
It is worth mentioning that the US Federal Trade Commission has strictly
required bloggers to clearly indicate that this publication is the result of
commercial cooperation with the brand. However, in the EU there is the issue at
the directives level, and in Latvia no one has been seriously following the
cooperation issue. Therefore, now we need to think about it and discuss. It is
important as representatives of international brands are increasingly demanding
compliance with international practice in Latvia, for example, the use of
special hashtags #sponsored #ad or when the advertiser controls the content of posts.
I think there will be more order in cooperation with bloggers in 2017.
2. The quality of audience and return
In the context of the attention
economy, we have to pay for the attention of the target audience. Facebook and
Instagram algorithms showing subscribers only a small percentage of your
publications made mandatory budget for advertising in social networks, as well
as a clear targeting of news to specific groups.
For this reason, it is time to learn
to use the so-called ‘big data’. Social networks operators will be required to
complement their skills with analytic functions to learn how to properly use an
array data available in the Facebook Insights.
Another future challenges is the
so-called ‘dark social’ - more than 80% of the information we distribute on
social networks is not seen in public, because it is sent through private
messages. Applying the methodology of analysis and evaluation of communications
campaign results, it is important to take into account this fact and look at
what are the real campaign result and return.
3. Information pills
Information load on the average
consumer is so great that it is almost overloaded. Therefore, it is important
to convey information in the most concise form. Such information pill are short
videos with useful information. For example, in a few seconds show how to make
a trendy makeup, cook dinner and to stretch after sitting too long.
Instead of publishing long texts do
Life Video. Because of its information capacity and the perception ease the
video format is becoming one of the most promising. In addition, increasingly
formats that combine online and offline media, including augmented reality will
develop.
4. Expanding borders
We are increasingly talking not
about ‘PR’ but about the ‘Communications’ emphasizing that the set of tools for
professionals who care about the communications of brands and organizations is
much more than for example only media relations. Therefore, not surprising that
the big Baltic competition ‘Baltic PR Awards’ was renamed the ‘Baltic Communication Awards’.
This year I would like to add
another focus to this story - events. Communicators independently organize a
variety of different scales events: media breakfasts, press conferences,
excursions, corporate events. At the same time, we are often unable to
perfectly reflect these activities. We do not know all the subtleties of the
entertainment industry, so do not always use cutting-edge technology.
On the other hand, professional
event organizers, who know very well all the latest trends in entertainment and
catering, are not always able to put accents on the important promises and
provide high quality media support to events. In my opinion, in the framework
of large major projects corporate communications specialists and event
professionals should combine their efforts to achieve better results. I think
it is logical that this year the first big conference with the focus on events
will be organized – Baltic For
Events, where all experts working with events will be able to meet.
Describing the trends of the year I
am coming back to the thought that everything turns around social networks.
Their influence is definitely great, but I think another challenge in 2017 is
to remember that they are not a panacea in any situation, and that the success
of communication is in diversity as well as in understanding of its audience.