How to Leverage Traditional Media in a Digital-First World

In today’s digital media age, businesses, organizations and the society at large rely heavily on social media and other digital forms of communications like emails, augmented reality, etc. However, traditional media has remained the main source of information for global institutional investors and multilateral organizations.

It is important to start off by defining key terms in this article

Public Relations

The CIPR defines public relations (PR) as “the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics”.

In traditional public relations, brands make use of the media, communities, government/investor relations, publications, publicity and advertising, events, campaign, audio/visual, protocol management, etc.

Digital Media
On the other hand, digital media makes use of technology and software to aid swifter communications between brands and their audience/stakeholders. Communication in the digital media age is done through social media, websites, emails, social listening tools, internal communications software, etc.

In an article by Sola Abulu, our Principal Consultant, she wrote

Majority of global news reporting for institutions and organizations around the world is still being handled by the traditional media i.e. BBC.. bloomberg, FT, WSJ, The Economist etc .. The only change that has occured is that they have had to become more innovative about funding and advertising revenue.

But they are still the main sources of information for global institutional investors, multilateral organizations etc. As long as governments, markets, international conglomerates and institutions and nations exist, there would be a need for the traditional media model.

The advent of technology has made communication for businesses, organizations, institutions and entities a lot easier but this does not take away the place of traditional public relations. The traditional media has its unique opportunities, one of which is the ability to have more personal and human relationships.Hence, communications professionals need to know how to leverage traditional media alongside social media.

How to Leverage Traditional Public Relations
Social media is limited in terms of reach to some people in communities who do not have access to information technology due to their current state of development, income, digital literacy, etc, Communicators need to assist their brands and clients in reaching their audience in these communities through other traditional channels like TVs, radio, townhall meetings, newspaper publications, community events, hand-out fliers, etc,

Traditional PR is still very relevant in the following sectors:

• Public policy & political communications: for political campaigns in the grassroot levels
• Health sector for health outreaches, vaccination programs and public health information campaigns
• Business sector for customer relations forums, supplier relations forum, corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns and interactions, annual general meetings, etc.

Depending on an organization’s stakeholder mapping and target audience, traditional PR is important to establish a face-to-face connection and relationship. You will find this article on The importance of Traditional PR: Why it’s still Relevant in today’s Digital Age very useful.
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