80% of PR Corporate Positioning for Senior Executives Globally Is Not Driven by Social Media Analytics

Key areas where PR professionals can unlock a competitive advantage in 2020 have been highlighted in new research released. Leading social listening and analytics platform, Talkwalker, joined forces with global market research and data analytics firm, YouGov, to gather data from 3,700 marketing and communications professionals based in Europe, USA, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East to release new research about the industry.

Talkwalker’s Global State of PR report reveals how different regions define “PR” and how communication departments can not afford to be siloed anymore. It highlights the different ways in which PR professionals use social listening tools in their day to day work, and which metrics they currently measure. This revealed that they are creating significant value in their role by increasingly embracing social listening for media management, influencer marketing, and real-time online crisis and reputation management.

The global adoption of social listening and analytics in the industry was reported at 48%. Countries with the highest reported use of social listening tools include France (75%), Italy (72%), United States (71%), South Africa (71%), and India (68%). Conversely Sweden (25%) and Norway (28%) reported the least use.  While nearly half of professionals globally confirmed that their companies use social listening tools, only 15% of them utilize them for newsjacking – a huge missed opportunity, considering newsjacking is widely considered as a PR technique that can drive mass coverage and influence sales in a measurable way.

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The global users of social listening tools in the marcomms industry have traditionally been social media managers and data analysts – Talkwalker’s 2020 Global State of PR report reveals that PR account managers, executives, coordinators, directors, and vice presidents together accounted for 33% of global users. This represents an interesting development for the PR industry as it maximizes the potential of social listening to protect, measure & promote brands. Shockingly, however, the report also revealed that C-level executives account for only 8% of global users of social listening tools in the industry, despite reputation and crisis management being critical to this role in the PR industry.

Finally, as influencer marketing has evolved into a key opportunity for marketers today – worth up to $10 billion in 2020 Talkwalker asked PR professionals how they engage with influencers, who they engage with, and which metrics they measure to prove ROI. The biggest surprise was that the industry is not actually dominated by Instagram, as many would think. For B2C influencer campaigns, 70% of PR professionals used Facebook to engage with influencers, compared to 68% using Instagram. The gap is even higher when it comes to B2B influencer campaigns, with 65% of PR professionals collaborating with influencers on Facebook and 53% on Instagram. PR professionals were also quick to jump on the fairly new social media platform, TikTok, with 8% using it for B2C influencer campaigns and 4% for B2B influencer campaigns.

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“The PR landscape has certainly undergone a lot of changes to keep up with today’s shift to digital. It is a very exciting time for the industry with plenty of untapped potential for professionals to go fully social and unlock the huge benefits that social PR strategies could offer,” said Robert Glaesener, Global CEO at Talkwalker.

“We strive to offer PR and Communication professionals cutting edge solutions in the social listening and analytics space, empowering them to protect and optimize their brands’ reputation globally.  Most recently, we launched  Conversation Clusters, a data visualization tool that maps topics visually from millions of social media conversations, enabling PR professionals and marketers to easily uncover and exploit stories, trends and content that can be leveraged in communication and PR campaigns.”

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