Educate. Inspire. Nudge.

The always-amazing Altimeter Group's Brian Solis has shared his thoughts around digital transformation and the need to embrace change.

I couldn't help but think this call to accept digital transformation is equally at home in the broad technology world as it is in the world of communications. All of marketing has changed, none more so than public relations itself. Time-honored and relationship-driven, many people still think of "PR" as an old-school press release-and-publicity gambit.

Luckily, not so much these days. Data, thought leadership, the credible-content preferences of search and the digital and social media marketer's need for original content to power their campaigns means public relations is increasingly a foundation for many enterprise marketing initiatives.

Even the name has changed, earned media, to differentiate its role as independent, non-paid promoted content in the marketing channel. See our overview of SEO and digital to explain more of this.

So, much as this report offers a call-to-action to embrace digital transformation, we work daily in our profession to educate, inspire, and yes, even nag, to get people to embrace the new, digital, thought leadership reality of PR.

Trend Report: Digital Transformation

Credit: CMSWire 2016