Threepipe recently hosted a #Commschat discussion about the increasing trend of paid media becoming a bigger part of the PR professional’s working life. Looking back a few years, and the nearest someone working in PR got to paid media was writing the odd advertorial or organising a colour separation (if they still exist?).

As I am sure you are aware, this has changed considerably. At its most basic level, many PRs managing social communities will have experienced ‘boosting’ to extend the reach and the targeting of content across Facebook and Twitter. The changing algorithms of the larger social media networks have meant a new type of skill creeping or flying into the profession.

The reality is that that the ability to run paid campaigns is going to become more necessary as part of our jobs. Whether you are managing social communities or indeed influencer campaigns, learning when and how to spend money and tracking the ROI will become an everyday requirement.

Influencer marketing is fast becoming a paid channel and one which historically PR professionals have ‘owned.’ The threat to all PR practitioners, regardless of whether one works agency side or client side is that there are other marketing disciplines that tend to understand how to manage paid spends better. SEO or media buying agencies are crammed full of people who have the experience and skillsets to run these campaigns better than most PR agencies.

The PR sector needs to start recruiting different skillsets into the industry as fast as possible. Earning influence is becoming harder because of the ever decreasing opportunity.

Many PR purists shudder at the thought of running paid campaigns but these tend to be those that are not at the coal face and don’t necessarily understand the new media landscape in which we find ourselves. Try reaching say a younger Gen Z audience whose media consumption is so fragmented and mostly confined to paid and closed media channels – very difficult indeed.

However, there is good news. PR people fundamentally understand how to create good content but it just needs a bigger stage to play on. While I see ad agencies, social agencies and media buying agencies creating great media neutral campaigns, I still believe that PR people inherently understand how to do it better.

If PR people can start applying some additional skills to this then all is not lost. Why not start using the tools that SEO agencies use to better inform the content strategy. Why not use the data and analytical skills of media buying agencies to help better distribute and track the performance of that content? Bringing wider skills into the team from more ‘performance’ based sectors will really help the cause.

I see the adoption of paid media skills as an accelerating trend and one that will not slow down. The benefits far outweigh the concerns as far as I see it from a PR perspective but I am not sure that everyone would agree with that.

Jim Hawker is co-founder of digital marketing and PR agency Threepipe