3 Questions PR pros in Asia Pacific are asking in 2020

In a world where return-on-investment (ROI) is becoming such an important metric for any business activity – PR pros face the same challenge. How do you measure the results of your PR efforts?

A new report details insights into how the PR industry is changing – based on 3,700 responses of marcomms and PR pros in a global survey by Talkwalker, in partnership with market research and data analytics firm YouGov.

The Global State of PR 2020 reveals questions, challenges and developments within the PR industry with key findings on:

• New PR offerings to consider as traditional and digital PR continue to overlap
• How Asia-based marcomms and PR pros use social listening to prove the value of PR efforts
• Measurement metrics used by PR pros in our region vs globally and how that’s evolving

Here are some of the biggest questions tackled in the report:

What should you include in your PR offerings?

The scope of PR extends across media channels – from traditional to digital and social media. According to the report, top PR offerings are no longer focused solely on media relations and press offices. Instead, these are the top 3 offerings based on the responses:

• social media management (77%)
• content marketing (77%)
• influencer marketing (67%)

(Read more about how pros are measuring and reporting on these PR offerings below.)

The rise of social media as its own platform for delivering content – and even news – in real time has truly challenged how PR was done traditionally. Successful PR pros are the ones who have learned how to leverage social media for relationship building and crisis management as part of PR efforts.

On the other hand, influencer marketing has also become a widely acknowledged PR offering globally and in Asia – particularly in Malaysia (88%) and the Philippines (86%). With engagements mostly involving B2B, consumer tech and travel influencers.

Why are PR pros using social listening?

Social listening is no longer confined to social media, data & research roles. Globally, PR pros account for 33% of social listening users primarily for PR measurement, reporting, and competitive benchmarking.

Surprisingly, however, only 8% of C-level executives globally use social listening tools – a missed opportunity for reputation and crisis management.

The same statistics were reported in Asia with Singapore and Malaysia rating below the global average while countries that exceeded the global average are Philippines (17%) and India (25%). This means the only way for PR & marcomms pros can prove value is if they are able to benchmark the outcome of their PR efforts against business metrics.

Contrary to the above figures, it’s actually quite common for PR practitioners in APAC to use more than one social listening tool to accommodate differences in data sources, offerings, and client preferences.

How are you measuring the impact of PR efforts?

While there seems to be a lot of different ways PR pros are proving the value of their work to stakeholders, engagement and potential reach/impressions are the most commonly used measurement metrics in APAC. However, it’s interesting to note that other regions are starting to adapt to other metrics such as sentiment analysis and share-of-voice (SOV).

When it comes to social media and content marketing emerging as key PR offerings, PR pros are turning to social analytics that are capable of analyzing media coverage, sentiment, image & video data, influencer collaborations and emerging trends. (Find out what the top social media trends in 2020 are that you should know about.)

As for influencer marketing, the report cited that PR pros in APAC usually engage influencers for giveaways/competitions, event attendance, and affiliate marketing. Subsequently, PR pros look at potential reach (54%), engagement (47%) and click-through rates (40%) to prove influencer marketing ROI.

Ready to take your PR practice to the next level this year? Download the full report to learn more about the state of PR and benchmark your PR offerings against industry leaders from your region and around the world.