Fundamental trends are driving the growth of public relations, says John Paluszek, APR, Fellow PRSA and chairman of the Global Alliance.

 He recently spoke to senior practitioners during a morning coffee before speaking to the Richmond PRSA.

 The three trends are

1)      Growing demand for PR services

2)      Providing a wide range of services

3)      Growing global demand

Paluszek, senior counsel with Ketchum, has counseled on corporate social responsibility and sustainability for severaldecades. He said that the demand for PR services continues to grow. “Almost all institutions now recognize the need for PR,” he says.

This is critical, he says, since PR professionals help to manage the interaction between the company and its stakeholder. 

PR once focused only on media relations, but today Paluszek says there is more specialization and a wider spectrum. Two areas that have implications from social media are issues management and crisis management. “Today it’s about how to get ahead of threats,” he says, “and what to do when the crisis hits.”

The messaging evolution has gone from delivering the message to what should the message be to a company asking what it should do.

The demand for PR services is happening all across the world. He cited MEPRA or the Middle East Public Relations Association as evidence of the need for PR services. His firm has six offices in China, which he said he could not have imagined 10 years ago.

“The world is changing and PR people are a part of it,” Paluszek says.