This year’s PRSA Colorado Chapter Summit was invigorating, to say the least – filled with opportunities to gain industry perspective and unique insights from many seasoned public relations professionals. I had the pleasure of attending on behalf of Linhart PR and walked away feeling motivated and excited to explore the many innovative solutions discussed to address our industry’s challenges.
Check out my five main takeaways from our day at Butterfly Pavilion, centered around the conference’s integral themes of technology, transparency and consistency.
1. Don’t fear artificial intelligence – partner with it. Emerging AI technologies continue to shape our world in new and exciting ways, affecting communication standards on a variety of levels. Greg Avery, Managing Editor of the Denver Business Journal, moderated a panel discussion about the evolving role of AI in business and public relations The panelists agreed that now is a pivotal time for communications professionals to define AI’s ethical and practical applications within our industry. While there’s forthcoming legislation and guidance to manage AI’s risks and align it with disclosure standards, like recent influencer marketing laws, each organization should discuss what they are and are not comfortable with when it comes to AI use. Leveraging AI for its unique insights while remaining vigilant about biases is essential in navigating this newtechnology, as it is still evolving every day.
Chris Ferris, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategies at Pierpont Communications also noted in his workshop that GenAI will increasingly rely on news sources moving forward, as seen in OpenAI’s recent $250 million deal with the Wall Street Journal to access its archives, while the New York Times is suing OpenAI over its uncredited content use. With all of these changes, communications professionals should be encouraged to embrace AI as a collaborative tool and proactively shape its ethical use within our organizations, while remaining vigilant about its evolving challenges to harness its potential responsibly.
2. Bridging the communications gap. Kanika Wilkerson, Communications Consultant at NSpire Communications, opened her workshop with the following quote from George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” While her presentation focused on the best ways to navigate and boost communications between leaders and employees, her points apply to communications of all shapes and sizes, from social media to media relations.
Effective communications strategies should incorporate elements of vision, transparency, clarity, consistency, prioritization, inclusion and open conversation. To identify gaps in communication, whether internal or external, teams should rely on direct feedback from their audiences, perform routine channel audits, record behavioral observations and practice benchmarking, while keeping in mind that feedback should always be viewed as valuable perspective rather than criticism.
3. Crisis resolved – with datapoints to prove it. While working to manage a crisis, our focus should be on how quickly the tone of the media coverage returns to a neutral state, rather than on the volume of initial negative buzz, according to Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO and Founder of Paine Publishing. It’s nearly impossible to control how much attention accumulates at the start of a crisis, but our job as communications professionals is to balance out the noise as quickly as possible.
Katie suggested using the slope of negative media coverage to affectively measure the success of your crisis management efforts. Other crisis communications success metrics include declines in petitions or boycotts and social media commentary and comparing share of negative coverage to peers.
4. Capturing authenticity through social media. Merideth Milliner Hartung and Nicolle Montgomery of B Public Relations led a workshop about ways to elevate social media campaigns in 2025, outlining three key tips:
- Prioritize authenticity and user-generated content (UGC), as polished ads are becoming less appealing to consumers vs. real-life personalities and experiences.
- Leverage social media search optimization strategies, like drafting captions to include keywords and descriptive data, to enhance post discoverability.
- Consider the booming influencer marketing industry, which is projected to reach approximately $24 billion by the end of 2024. While working to secure meaningful collaborations with influencers, it’s crucial to vet them beyond their bios, followers and like counts while understanding today’s growing preference for small influencers due to their lower partnership costs; already established, niche audiences; and content specializations. Recent reports show that 44% of brands prefer nano-influencers and 26% favor micro-influencers over macro-influencers and celebrities, and TikTok has become the leading influencer marketing channel – used by 69% of brands today.
Each of these insights are powerful reminders to communications professionals who hope to leverage the power of social media for their clients.
5. Search engines have evolved into “answer engines.” While SEO isn’t quite extinct, it’s evolving due to the rise of artificial intelligence, according to Chris Ferris of Pierpont Communications. He shared that 96.55% of internet pages receive no organic traffic from Google, and nearly 60% of Google searches in 2024 ended without a click, as the platform aims to keep users on its site longer with its AI overview. When reporting on earned media, Chris argued it’s more beneficial to monitor for search spikes of relevant client keywords around the article publication date, using Google Trends, rather than looking to organic traffic from Google Analytics. This is because most websites don’t receive organic traffic directly from Google anymore.
