The economic recession is making PR people work much harder to get the same results as two or three years ago.

Harder for us, PR experts, means not that we always have to work added overtime (although this, of course, happens too), but that we have to be even more creative than before.

Well, perhaps now you will stop me by saying that this is nothing new – PR people always had to be creative in what they do! Yes, you’re absolutely right, but …. Nowadays we have to be more creative not just in using traditional PR tools. We also have to think “outside the box” and be creative in finding new PR tools, methods and activities, which can help us – in this dynamic and constantly changing world – to satisfy our clients, fulfill their expectations and reach their communication goals.

Here in Lithuania, for example, print media has suffered in the economic crisis: newspapers and magazines went bankrupt, those who are still here survived only by decreasing their circulation, reducing the number of pages, and cutting down staff by almost 50 % if not more. The after-effects are not heartening. For example, we have only one business daily in Lithuania at the moment. Moreover, reporters hardly attend media events, and newspapers got rid of foreign news columns. Print media is interested only in news of national importance. Furthermore, media badly hungers for advertising money, so it is very hard to get coverage about products or services without advertising budgets.

Media relations – one of the traditional PR tools – has become a real challenge for PR people in Lithuania. If we want to get a publication to mention a client, we need to be twice as – or four times as – creative as before, because on average only one topic out of 4-5 attracts the attention of a journalist. Which is why I am talking about the need for other, more direct, maybe not traditional PR tools to attract attention to our clients and to communicate their messages.

Social media and digital PR are becoming more and more popular in our country and give us great potential for new possibilities to reach the target audiences of our clients and to communicate their messages directly to their target groups. Of course, in using a new PR tool such as social media we need to be creative too.

While exploring the question of creativity in today’s public relations I found one very interesting post. I think it might be interesting for you too, so please, take a look. This post made me think about what I believe creativity is in social media. In my experience, creativity in social media is the ability to stay interesting, useful and engaging, so that your fans follow you in social media networks, and become your messengers – spreading your messages to those who still do not know you, or at least those who still aren’t part of your social networks. And I truly agree with the idea that creativity in social media is about getting others to tell our stories for us.

Ultimately, it is all about creativity!