I noticed a few glaring tech trends happening that are affecting public relations in the second half of 2024. These include TikTok's growing popularity as a news source, AI adopting a sassy tone, and journalists using AI to make predictions like which teams will win college football championships this season. The predicted ACC winner is mentioned in number 5 below!
Of course white hot NVIDIA – worth a stunning $3 trillion now – is discussed in number 3.
Here are the six trends:
1. People Are Getting News from TikTok. According to The Verge, "TikTok is the social media sensation that all of Silicon Valley — and a lot of Washington, DC — has their eyes on. The app, created by ByteDance, became famous for rocketing musicians and dancers to stardom. But as its popularity and influence have grown... social media competitors are doing everything they can to knock off TikTok's features and usurp its short-form video dominance."
My advice is use TikTok to become familiar with it. There is a ton of 'citizen journalist' news on it. I went on Twitter, now X, long before many of my PR colleagues and was glad I did (well up until you know who bought it.) Here are some Pew Research stats on TikTok's popularity. Parents, check to see if your child's teacher has an account! There are many educators on there.
2. AI Has Become Sassy – I'm using AI a lot and my tools are becoming quite sassy. I asked my husband to set a back up alarm so I can get up on time for my flight to Seattle. Siri raised her voice saying, "I set an alarm already. It's done!" I repeated the request to my husband. Siri chimed in and said, "I set a back up too. Two alarms!" I said, "Siri, is your name Dave?" She said, "Who's Dave?" Yep, she set two alarms for 5 AM.
And CoPilot is chiming in when I don't ask it a question. It has interrupted my generic internet searches several times recently. AI has gotten a personality. It's almost as if the letters are brighter or bigger or appear faster when it is interrupting my other work with its 'opinion.' One time CoPilot proactively provided the answer when I could not find it via regular search.
My advice is to enjoy AI's new personality because it makes working more interesting.
3. NVIDIA Dominates Headlines and Keynotes. It is THE place to work or partner with and the CEO is the hottest keynote. Their AI chips are in hot demand. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, below, continues to keynote top conferences like just recently, Siigraph. Also, NVIDIA is worth an estimated $3.06 trillion dollars as of 8/16/24 according to several financial sites.
My advice is to read about what NVIDIA is up to and be aware of their major actions. Think about newsjacking strategies. Can your company executives offer a comment in a story about NVIDIA? It's a simple concept but if you have something intelligent to say and it's not a conflict of interest, go for it. Sometimes people way overthink their PR strategies.
4. The 'Secret Recession' Lowers Marketing Budgets. This is leading to requests for workers to do more with less. Forbes and the PRSA Silicon Valley blog both recently covered the underground recession. Forbes based it on a high number of startups going out of business.
My advice is to keep a positive attitude, set up more meetings if you are job hunting, and destress if you are left at a company after others have been laid off. Take a walk outside during your breaks. Foster kittens. Spend the weekend seeing The Dead and Company in Las Vegas. Learn how to play. If you want to learn golf, go to a driving range and practice hitting balls. The pro shop will set you up with a golf club, probably a driver, and bucket of balls.
5. AI Tools Help Journalists Make Predictions: The Sporting News just published AI's college football championship team predictions. It's interesting. With the Cal Bears and Stanford trees moving to the ACC I'm most interested in that one. Apparently, Florida State and Clemsen are the baddest teams there. (And by bad I mean good.) By the way, I saw a Bears-Clemsen game at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley and there were literally thousands of Clemsen fans there. They were loud and proud. Clemsen won. This was last season.
My advice is ask Microsoft CoPilot and ChatGPT questions every day: Get used to using them. Being comfortable with AI will make you a more valuable worker. The writing and responses are getting more high quality daily.
6. Tech Reporters Change Jobs Faster Than You Can Say, "Wanna buy my Cybertruck?"
Tech reporters continue to change jobs, like Kenrick Cai went from Forbes to Reuters, and Jon Swartz went from Marketwatch to Tech Strong Group. Actually, these two didn't change jobs fast. Both were in their previous jobs quite a few years. But some do change jobs at least annually.
My advice is to check a reporter's social media profile job description before reaching out to them.
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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley-based PR Consultant with 11 awards for results: Eight are from IBM. She gets companies much needed attention so that they are more attractive to workers, investors and other stakeholders. She is on the PRSA Silicon Valley Chapter board and boasts 2.2 million views on Quora. Message her on LinkedIn if you need PR help.
Image credits: The robot in sunglasses image was created by CoPilot AI on 8/20/24. The Jensen Huang and Ragdoll kitten photos, and ACC sports conference logo are from Wikipedia.
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