Top 10 PR & Communications blog posts of 2020

This year has been a tough one for public relations and communications professionals. Yet the sector has proved its worth many times over as a strategic management function, with advice and counsel, crisis management, effective internal comms and the need for clear messaging in difficult times.

Those working to make it happen have faced extra pressure, longer work hours and significant mental strain.

We’ve aimed to provide support, advice, and guidance through think pieces from Public Relations, Public Affairs, Political and Communications practitioners, alongside addressing some of the big challenges being faced across the industry.

Here are ten of our most popular PR and communications blog posts of 2020:

1. 11 ways to mentally prepare for an eventual return to the office
While it’s unlikely that the PR and comms workforce will be heading back to 9-5 office-based working any time soon, mentally preparing for the eventuality has been on our minds – we gathered advice from mental health practitioners on how to get ready when offices eventually reopen.

2. Private members’ bill ballot: The 20 successful backbenchers
Back at the start of the year, 20 backbench MPs won the opportunity to introduce their chosen Bills in a Private Members’ Bill ballot and became important stakeholders for anyone working in public affairs – our political expert Sam Webber summarised the details.

3. Holly Lynch MP: Tax bills are driving are most experienced cops out of policing
Another popular politics-related post was this guest feature from Holly Lynch, Labour MP for Halifax, who shared her thoughts on police pensions and tax bills.

4. How do you balance parenting with WFH: Part 1
When even Joe Wicks wasn’t enough to keep the kids occupied, we looked at balancing work and family commitments when WFH got difficult – a selection of PRs battling through it earlier this year shared their secrets for success.

5. How to pitch to busy newsrooms in busy times
As the PR and comms industry faced extra pressure during the pandemic, so too did busy newsrooms, battling furlough, redundancy and misinformation – pitching quickly and accurately became even more important.

6. How to pitch to freelancers
And here was the start of our How to pitch to… series (our full guide is available to download here) – starting with freelance journalists working across all areas of the media.

7. 6 questions PRs ask journalists that are guaranteed to make them annoyed, angry or irate
With busier newsrooms came the potential for shorter fuses – this guest post from Motive PR’s Steve McComish covered the questions that journalists really don’t want to hear from PRs… ever.

8. The PR guide to the NLA
For the practicals of monitoring print and online coverage, we answered some frequent questions about the NLA and covered which licences work best for PRs.

9. Virtual events and why they’re more important than ever
‘Large mass gatherings are no longer part of the calendar and as we all adapt to social distancing, events have had to adapt too’ – our events specialist Rebecca Potts covered the importance of virtual events and the best way to get going online.

10. How to sell in a pandemic
Covering the biggest concern for a large portion of the industry this year was this guest post from Darryl Sparey, starting with an appropriate Jay Z lyric and finishing up with the assurance that things will ‘be okay’ – a thought for us all to hold on to going into 2021.

And finally…
We’d like to end the year with a big thank you to everyone in communications, public relations and public affairs for all your hard work that’s continued through the ongoing challenges.

However you’ll be celebrating the holidays, we hope you’ll be taking a well-earned break – stay safe, and we’ll see you for more successes next year.

For more of the big trends in PR and communications in 2020, check out this round up of ten 2020 trends from 13 industry thought leaders. 

Preparing for 2021? Make note of these trends coming up for PR and comms next year.