PRISA gets 2010 communication tips

External Communications

Munslow, as chief communications officer, highlighted his prediction for the top 10 media and external communication trends.

Media measurement needs to evolve

Public relations have traditionally relied heavily on a monetary unit to calculate the value of the editorial space they obtain in media. This unit is known as (AVE) Advertising Value Equivalent .Based on global trends and research, we will start to follow in the footsteps of the American and Canadian thought-leaders in this field in identifying more qualitative units of measure to assess media exposure.

New media measurements need to be explored

Social media and social networking is being used more and more by companies, people, advertisers, marketers and communicators. There is going to be a pressing need in 2010 to measure the impact such exposure has on the businesses represented online.

Foreign media learnings

South Africa is going to be literally taken over by the foreign press for a month over the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This will be a learning curve for both local and international media, as they experience one another's work methodologies, engaging in conversation about media, the country and much more.

Use of social media in a business context

While there is nothing really new about social media anymore, the use of it in business, as a tool linked to corporate communication imperatives, is now starting to finds its feet.

Accepting digital media as complimentary to traditional media

Some people still believe digital media will replace or outstrip traditional media. 2010 will be a year of realising that this is not the case, and that the two are complimentary to one another.

Use of media in internal communication

Media is also found within organisations. Far too many companies still see internal communications as a newsletter, or an intranet or a magazine - and some a combination.

Vertical integration into mobile media platforms

Mobile platforms have not been given the credit they deserve for reaching mass audiences until now. Mobile media is one of the fastest growing tools to engage with audiences, and media will need to explore ways of integrating this channel into their offering.

Editors will create content with consumers

It was last year year that an American blog promoted the term ‘curated information' - consolidate the vast amount of information being put on the web and make it manageable.

Marketing will want to use media to create conversations

While traditional marketing has been about raising awareness through a uni- or bi-dimensional approach, we are likely to see a shift to multidimensional marketing that will be increasingly about creating conversations between brands and its customers.

Media needs to be responsible.

With all of these changes and developments, the World Cup and other events scheduled for 2010, the media needs to handle change with care and consideration.

Hamman, CEO of Talk2Us, unpacked the top trends in the internal communication space, which was first flighted on BizCommunity's 2010 trends series on 14 January 2010. See [2010 trends] Fundamental changes for internal comms in SA.