By Suzanne Haysler, EVP Consumer PR, The PHA Group
In the last decade, the PR industry has evolved from a largely traditional sector to one navigating TikTok trends, GEO, and a creator economy that never sleeps.
Back in 2016, social media was still on the rise, the influencer landscape was completely different, and print coverage was still our main target.
To put it into perspective, it wasn’t long before this that I started my career as an intern back in 2011, and one of my main jobs was cutting coverage out of the newspaper to glue into our physical coverage books. I wonder if any clients actually kept these?
To give you an even better example, even in 2016 I was still printing everything I needed for meetings as the company shared just a few laptops between us. Desktops were the norm as we worked 5 days in the office without ever considering an alternative.
In just ten years, the industry has transformed completely. PR is a much more integrated discipline and generally the industry has stepped up in a major way.
Rather than go through absolutely everything that’s changed, here I’ve instead stuck to the things that feel the most important (to me at least).
The creator economy
While journalists still play a major role in shaping and communicating brand narratives, in 2026 the landscape of who can be an ‘influencer’ of public opinion is much more complex.
Depending on the industry, target audience and objective, any good communications strategy, should also be considering influencers, affiliate creators, podcasters, and industry experts as potential targets for a campaign.
And within this, with the rise of channels like TikTok, pretty much anyone can become an influencer overnight with the right piece of content, which means brands also need to consider employees and customers as potential channels that they can activate because communities now actively participate in shaping brand stories, rather than passively consuming them.
For people who work in PR, this is something that is continually evolving and means that a broader and more agile skillset is needed to stay ahead. We’ve always been experts in telling stories, we just now need to consider the many many ways this could be told and what will be most effective.
Value beyond readership
How we measure the impact of PR has long been a point of contention. And back in 2016, the conversation was starting to change thanks to SEO and Digital PR.
But, in the last few years, the rise of generative AI has prompted a notable shift in sentiment. As brands adapt to a world shaped by GEO, authoritative third-party coverage has taken on renewed importance.
Positive media coverage within credible publications is increasingly being surfaced and synthesised by AI-driven platforms. Essentially, this means that the value of coverage has moved well beyond the audience reading the article, and even beyond link building too. Now, high-quality earned coverage doesn’t just build reputation – it feeds the engines shaping how information is discovered and summarised.
For many, this has been a powerful reminder that trusted media doesn’t just matter – it’s essential.
Everyone is time poor
To me, it feels like we are living and working in an ever-increasing fast paced environment. This impacts how we work together as comms teams, how we behave as consumers and how we interact with the media.
When it comes to journalists, because their teams have been consolidated and they are prioritising digital content, they have an increasing pressure to deliver articles that grab attention, drive clicks and even convert into revenue through affiliate links.
This means it’s literally harder than ever before to get them to care about your pitch. In 2016, it was really just about honing the story, building relationships and picking up the phone. In 2026, of course all of these things still matter – except phone calls have been replaced with WhatsApp and DMs for the most part – there are a whole array of other things to consider.
For example, search trends and how to pitch content based on things audiences are actively looking for already, the hundreds of micro trends that emerge every day on TikTok and how this is shaping consumer behaviour, the affiliate commission you can offer to contacts, the culturally relevant content you can create to enhance the story – the list goes on. This demands a lot of PR pros and we have to carve out the time to ensure we are doing all of the above to generate results.
What will the next 10 years bring?
What will the next ten years bring? Who knows – and that’s the best part.
In PR, no two days are ever the same, let alone years. Our job is to stay curious, stay close to culture and stay committed to telling meaningful stories. If we can do that, we won’t just keep up – we’ll stay ahead.
