The last 2 years have been nothing less than an overextended class on crisis management for the PR companies across the globe. While the world is slowly opening up with cautions of a wave 3, the challenges that PR companies faced in the past 2 years don’t seem to end. 

The situation at which the pandemic has brought the world in is now writing a new history for the PR community. In this article today, we are going to look at those public relations challenges and think of solutions around them. 

What are the different public relations challenges the world is facing?

1. Proving that it is valuable

One of the biggest public relation issues businesses face is in terms of proving the value and demonstrating the ROI. In a 2020 JOTW Communications Survey, it was found that it becomes difficult for PR reps to to measure the impact the PR activity has created. What this problem arises out of is the lack of knowledge in terms of what has to be tracked in the first place. 

The solution to this public relation issues is to create a system that takes in effort, engagement, and the outcome – something that you can do simply with the help of a project management tool or even excel and a UTM link. 

2. Maintaining face-to-face relationships 

COVID has limited people to their homes behind a screen, the in-office meetings have been replaced by Zoom calls with multiple distractive events happening in the background. This drastic reduction in meeting face to face has led to PR companies losing out on their ongoing clients, while making it difficult to make new ones. 

The solution to this can purely be to up your networking game. Get on a call with the existing clients to touch base with what has been going on in their life, how they are planning to move infront business-wise and give them impromptu solutions and ideas to flourish in the post-pandemic world. 

3. Explaining the importance of communication to the executives 

People who make it to the executive team come from a range of different backgrounds and skill sets, with marketing and communication not being a must-have skill. For businesses whose executives are not well-versed in communications, it becomes different for the PR team to educate them of what’s what and why it’s important. 

The solution to this one of the most pestering public relations problems is only one – be simple when it comes to explaining a concept to the executives who come from a non-marketing background and be ready to be repetitive. The more you help them understand communications, the more you will earn their respect. 

4. The facelessness nature of social media 

One of the biggest PR challenges that I see in the current time and world is the mob-like nature of faceless social media. People are too quick to create an image and react to things in an almost mob-like behaviour, giving businesses little to no time to do crisis management. It is one of those challenges of public relations in which businesses are holding themselves back from employing a PR team in-house in the first place. 

The solution to this most universal challenges of PR is to be as politically correct as possible. And in the instances where you slip through, choose an approach between not ignoring the backlash entirely and not indulging with every comment. 

5. Extended roles

There was once a time when PR teams had to only connect with media houses and pitch the story. But now, the job description of a PR person revolves around end to end work – finding the best media houses, writing content, creating creatives and collaterals, and maintaining relations with the media agencies and influencers. 

This extended role is posing as one of key problems of public relations for the people employed in the role. The public relation solution to this particular issue is prioritizing what is important and what can be kept in the long-term bucket. The key here, however, would be to take the call on the basis of the activity that will give the most returns. 

6. Having a lot of unorganized data

Today, the data that the public relations effort is made up of is spread across a range of different platforms. Businesses have data coming in from social media, websites, emails, comments on forums and what not. 

The solution to this public relation issue is simply to get the right set of tools and people to organize the data in a way that it is not just understandable but also easy to track and analyze. 

So here were the top 6 public relations challenges and solutions that a team is likely to face for some years till we don’t settle down to this new-normal situation. At Star trooper media, we have worked around all these 6 issues and a lot more to get our clients mass visibility and to keep them in-trend. 

We can help you too. Reach out to us to get your brand in front of the world’s eyes.