The Perfect P"AI"R: Putting the AI in PR

I know I'm not the first person to say this: communications pros have a general aversion to tech.

For some reason, it scares them.

Of course, I'm not talking about everyone, but when you look at the PR industry as a whole, there's been a pattern of digital avoidance. Something you don't find in marketing.

And this attitude's led to many missed opportunities to build and manage relationships and reputation.

Perhaps it's because of the nature of the profession. PR pros are trained to ask questions, deliberate and consider many angles.

That depth of reasoning can slow you down. And possibly make you less open to change because you're unsure of what the consequences might be.

Now, this wasn't always the case.

In the pre-fax era—that is, the days of electric typewriters and phones—communicators were more than simpatico with the tech. You could almost say voicemail was a PR person's middle name.

Yet the post-fax era of computers, tablets, smartphones, websites, social media, SEO, digital analytics and generative AI has put the fright on PR.

Case in point: I worked for an agency in the early 2000s that didn't have a website because saying you did media relations and organized events was 'giving too much info away'.

That led directly to lost business when my team and I were pitching a big internet search company (that has since fallen on hard times). We had some amazing ides and were just about to get started.

But before we could turn on the projector, the client said, 'We tried to find you online and couldn't see your website'.

I hemmed and hawed a bit and finally said ... um, I've written a couple that are waiting for approval, so soon...

'How can you possibly understand our business if you have no presence online', the client shot back. 'This meeting's over!'

And we slinked out ...

No one would admit it at the time, but we all knew the client had a point.

Will PR Turn Up Its Nose at AI?

Communications had a similar experience with social media.

Many—again, not all—people in the profession couldn't conceive that direct two-way conversations would ever overtake legacy media.

'Why would anyone care what a person has for lunch', some highly intelligent and successful PR leaders would say?

Well, because talking with a brand makes it appear more human. And that plays directly into our desire to be social and connect. And build relationships and trust.

Score another point for marketing when they jumped in and were able to transition to paid social when the platforms realized they had to make a buck.

Now that generative AI is here, I'm worried this could turn into another missed opportunity for PR.

And that doesn't make sense. Because the transition to AI tools should feel as natural as writing a news release.

It's Time for PR Pros to Have a Serious Talk with a Chatbot

Why?

Because generative AI is conversational and so is PR. It's all about two-way communications—except you're talking to a machine. Coding in natural language.

And PR skills—like understanding your audience's position and figuring out how to craft a message that makes sense to the recipient—play a big part in achieving your AI goals.

So rather than shying away from AI in PR, communicators need to learn how to use it in your workflow beyond simply creating content.

Imagine ways the platform might augment what you do, push your thinking in new directions and help you refine your approach to ethical PR.

That's what I cover in a new course, Using Generative AI in Public Relations, the first one of its kind designed especially for communications pros on LinkedIn Learning.

I begin by introducing three types of data and discuss why you need to consider every piece of writing and every image and video as a data point that can be stored, categorized and analysed.

I show how to use gen AI to help you understand audiences and what they're thinking, conduct synthetic focus groups, A/B test headlines and messages and ask AI what's missing from the blog posts and news items you write, create or produce.

Special thanks to the talented team at LinkedIn Learning for helping bring the course to life, Almeera Jiwa Pratt , Charles (Max) Wong and Tammy Guerin ! I couldn't have done it without your support!

I'm doubly excited about this content since it's something I've been thinking about for a long time and encourage you to watch.

And let me know what you think.

Moving Beyond Conversation to Multimodal AI

But conversations with chatbots that generate copy or text is just the first step.

You also need to understand multimodal AI or tools that can process more than one type of data. This includes text-to-image, text-to-video, text-to-translation and many more.

Getting a handle on multimodal AI is the topic for this week's Digital Marketing Trends video.

Check it out and let me know if you have any questions.

Follow Me on LinkedIn

Well, we've come to the end of this week's 'lesson', er-I mean issue #111.

Thank you to all of you who follow me and subscribe, read, comment and share this newsletter! It's great having all of you along for the ride.

This newsletter comes out every two weeks. But between issues, I share shorter daily posts with my take on digital marketing and the latest on generative AI. It's another way to stay on top of the trends.

And while you're at it, follow the Future of Marketing Institute , too. Every day we post content and perspectives on where we may be heading and what the shift might mean.

Let me know if you have questions about any of the videos in Digital Marketing Trends, or my other LinkedIn Learning courses . You can also visit my website and send a message or a question.

How are you using AI in PR (or marketing) beyond content generation? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

See you in a couple of weeks. And don't worry, there won't be a test ??!

Note: All the content in this post was written by a human—me and not Martin-bot.