The 5th annual Digital Trends Survey of Financial services media was recently conducted by Broadgate Mainland. The 2013 Digital Trends Survey is a huge step within the financial sector, as it evaluates the digital and social media practices in the present digital era, among in-house communications officers and financial journalists in the financial sector of the United Kingdom. This is a simple opinion survey that has had a huge impact on the industry for the past several years.

Highlights:

• social media is transforming how journalists and PRs communicate
• journalists stay online, whereas PRs log in and log out
• social media is important but not essential
• more companies are adopting social media policies
• outsourced social media is increasing
• coverage in print is second best to digital

Just like the previous years, this year, too, the survey focused on the way digital communications and social media are transforming the way PRs and journalists interact/ communicate. It even stressed upon the way in which journalists promote their official work and execute the daily activities on the job. In-house PRs and journalists are known to access the process of social media in a different manner, and at fluctuating times of the day. Journalists have a propensity to stay on the Internet, whereas in-house PRs are known to log in and out of the Internet. They connect with social media more frequently in their downtime; they usually go online during their lunchtimes.

 

 

 

Social media is, no doubt essential, but still it’s not really viewed as a necessity by in-house communications officers within the financial sector. More number of firms are adapting social media policies these days. However, as per the survey, this is still a work in progress. As a simple solution to upholding multiple numbers of channels, those communications officers who are strained for time are progressively outsourcing regular monitoring of social media channels to a third party. For a journalist, digital coverage is their success. The numbers of page views measure the worth of all their stories.

 

 

Several social media tools, including Twitter, have also witnessed the momentum, moving from being helpful for conversation and listing in-tools, to being regarded as the most significant channel, which journalists utilize to distribute news pieces and comment, both on the level of personal and broader media. The 2012 survey showed that the PRs desired to pitch by telephone; however, journalists favoured email. However, today, the PRs have taken a significant note over the last year. Now, journalists and PRs both regard email as their first preference, be it for receiving stories or pitching them.

From Broadgate Mainland’ 2013 Digital Trends Report – leaders in financial services pr.

Guest Post contributed by Perl Watson from Worthing UK.

Image Source: Flickr/Bernt Rostad