A look back at how PR has changed
Written by Niki juhasz
A couple of weeks ago, my colleagues and I were reminiscing about “how PR used to be.” In addition to making us feel – well, like seriously seasoned comms professionals who have seen it all – it made us realize just how different things are.
So then I asked the rest of our teammates how PR has changed over their careers. Here are their answers, just for fun. (How many of these do YOU remember?)
Old School Media Relations
Safiya shared that she remembers always calling reporters with pitches! Email was just starting out and reporters didn’t really check them yet – and texting wasn’t even on the radar.
Katie mentioned literally faxing press releases to reporters. And actually needing those three pound signs at the end, just to let reporters know the press release was over.
Lauren immediately thought about creating a clip book for clients from physically cut out newspaper articles, pasted in the book with an actual glue stick.
“Technology” Back In The Day
Zoe recalls her days as a Senate page. Instead of having an iPad like they have now, pages had to memorize faces and track down senators during quick votes. We approach policymakers quite differently these days.
Emily used to dictate her stories over the phone back when she was a reporter for the Associated Press.
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The Beginning of Social Media
Ashley told me she explored Google Blog Search – which has long been discontinued – as a research tool for her client.
Facebook still required a college email to sign up. We were exploring options such as Foursquare and MySpace for our marketing initiatives. Vine was perhaps a bit too ahead of its time.
Are you feeling old yet?
Michael more or less told me that I’m way older than he is, and I don’t want to know where he was in 2003, effectively launching my midlife crisis. He did, though, mention writing out emails on the keyboard of his Blackberry, which made all of us feel a tiny bit better.
While all of this reminiscing was fun, it also reminded us that communication is far from static. What worked last year might not work this year. What didn’t work three years ago may be the perfect tactic moving forward. We recommend revisiting your communications plan yearly – and have an easy tool to help!
Here at Forthright, we’re continuing to think about what the future holds as well – from how AI and ChatGP will impact our strategies to how to reach our burned out audiences.
As always, we’ll be here with more tips, tricks and data-backed recommendations for how *your* communications can keep up with the times.
