Mary Poliakova, Co-Founder and COO of Drofa Comms, recently shared her opinion with PRmoment on the intersection of data analytics with journalism and PR. So why are data-focused specialists the future of Public Relations?
The news agenda is changing at a rapid pace. So, the audience has to shift ways of information consumption. This is all in order to stay in the information bubble and to escape the FOMO feeling. As a vivid example, people tend to switch from reading articles on media online outlets to skimming over brief posts in social media.
Simply crafting a quality news piece is not enough anymore. Journalists need to grasp readers’ attention — make them actually click on the link to the website to read the full material. This has led to the so-called “clickable mentality” and race for readers` attention among the journalistic community. As a result, a whole new branch of journalism is evolving — data-journalism. This direction includes the usage of infographics and interactive data.
And it is no wonder that with the emerging trends, the demand for data-specialists is increasing. For example, media giants like Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal have even created specialised data departments that aggregate and analyse information for its further use in their articles. Ms. Poliakova also highlighted some fundamental reasons for such popularity of data-news. As data-journalism gains traction, it as well affects the PR field.
“It is crucial for PR pros to keep track of changes that take place in the information consumption market. Demand creates supply, after all. And with the growing trend for data-filled materials, PR professionals now have to expand their toolkit to include infographics” — stated Ms. Poliakova.
She also highlighted the need for PR specialists to communicate in the same language as journalists — language of data. Therefore, Ms. Poliakova expects that the profession of “Data PR-manager” will come to the fore.
Read the full version of the article on PRmoment.
