Are PRs content with brand content creators?
How news gets communicated is constantly changing. Not only are there more ways to consume information, but the number of content sources is also increasing.
With more places for people to consume information – PRs should be jumping with joy. But that’s not always the case.
A strongly debated topic is whether content created by companies and organisations is ‘real’ when compared to traditional media.
Branded publications and content is not showing any signs of slowing. How do PRs really feel about this change in content consumption?
To engage or not to engage…
For the third year running, we’ve teamed up with Collective Content to analyse how PRs view and interact with ‘brand journalists’ – predicting what this could mean for the future.
This year we collected responses from almost 350 PRs in a mixture of in-house and agency roles.
Comparing results with previous years, in 2017 there is less uncertainty about how PRs interact with brand journalists. Opinions for or against working with them seem much stronger and 33.1% feel that brand journalists will never be treated on par with traditional journalists.
What’s your agenda?
Regularly appearing in the responses this year is the word ‘agenda’. Some PRs believe that brands will only create content that is biased towards their company. There’s also worries about a clash of interests between brand journalists and the needs of PR clients.
Although PRs seem to have greater opinions on brand journalism this year, many are still denying that content sources are changing. Perhaps 2018 will be the year of realisation.