Birnbach Communications Issues Top Tech, Business and Media Trends for 2013

Feb. 28, 2013 - PRLog -- Birnbach Communications, Inc., an independent PR and social media agency, that partners with its clients to strategically navigate the complex and ever-changing communications landscape, today issued its top media trends for 2013. Taking an analyst’s approach to monitoring the media and social media, the agency based its list of trends on conversations with reporters, bloggers and Twitter members.  

The following are among Birnbach Communications’ predictions for 2013:

·         The story still matters.  Even in a communications age limited by Twitter to 140 characters, the story and messages continue to matter.  But stories need to be told both more concisely and differently.  Stories need visuals, to be more frequent (i.e., not just a couple of times per year), customer centric, offering tips and lessons learned. They also need to be shareable.

·         Corporate values and personality matter. In 2013 and beyond, social media will multiply the impact of values and corporate personality. Companies need to communicate not just their selling proposition but also their values and personality as they engage with customers via social media.

·         3D printers: Not yet ready for prime time. 2013 will be the year in which the media proclaims the arrival of 3D printers – but making three-dimensional solid copies from an original item seems somewhat of an early adopter item to us. If people have problems with paper jams in regular printers, just imagine the potential problems with 3D printers.

·         TVs and the cable industry are on the cusp of significant change.  There are two parts of the story:

1.     The Battle for the Living Room: focused on who can supply the highest of the ultra high definition (UDH) TVs. (We think there will be a market for UHD TVs – but not this year; wait until there’s more content shot in the UHD format, the same sort of obstacle we discussed amid last year’s hype for 3D TVs). Potential disrupter: Despite Apple’s persistent denials that it is not developing its own TV set, expect to see articles about Apple's effort into redesigning the user experience of watching TV set.

2.     The Battle for How We Watch TV: Many of us no longer watch TV on an actual TV set. We’re streaming video and we’re cutting the cord on cable. Cable is fighting back, in part by offering apps that let you stream content and in part through things like Cablevision’s lawsuit against Viacom for the way it bundles cable channels. What consumers really want is to watch whatever they want on whatever device they want, wherever they are – and they want it to be simple, use the same remote (one that’s not too complicated) and they don’t want to pay a lot for it. Got it?

·         App burnout: Most of us use only a fraction of those apps we downloaded. Just because there’s an app for that, doesn’t mean people actually use the app after downloading it. This will make it difficult for future app developers to break through the hundreds of thousands of already-existing apps – or lead to new super apps designed to provide a single interface for similar apps like Evernote, Dropbox, SkyDrive, etc.

Birnbach Communications’ annual predictions helps the agency's clients work more effectively with reporters, analysts, bloggers, prospects and customers on social networking sites.  The complete list is being rolled out http://blog.birnbachcom.com/2013/02/birnbach-communications-top-predictions.html on the PRBackTalk, blog.birnbachcom.com.

“We’re seeing a lot of 2012 trends carry over into 2013, particularly the importance of mobile technology, cloud computing, BYOD, and the staying power of social media – which all have an impact on how we work, access information and spend leisure time, as well as how companies need to tell their stories.  Communications functions have to develop and distribute content across different platforms and different devices, and they have to understand that content designed for a smartphone has to be more succinct than content intended to be viewed on a computer,” said Norman Birnbach, president, Birnbach Communications, Inc.

About Birnbach Communications
Boston-based Birnbach Communications, an independent PR and social media agency, partners with its clients to strategically navigate the complex and ever-changing communications landscape. The agency enables its client base of growing technology-driven companies to achieve  leadership in a crowded business communications market by helping them launch products and services; establish new product categories and drive market demand through media and influencer relations, social media, and thought leadership campaigns. Founded in 2001 with the commitment to combine the best aspects of large-agency experience with small-agency culture and dedication, Birnbach Communications brings flexible senior-level intelligence and a proven, pragmatic approach to solving clients’ business challenges. Birnbach Communications' team provides senior-level PR, social media, marketing and communications counsel and implementation across a range of industries, including financial software and services, unified communications, healthcare and biotechnology, and nonprofit and education. Connect with Birnbach: Web: www.birnbachcom.com, Twitter: twitter.com/#!/birnbachcomm; Blog: blog.birnbachcom.com (../../../../AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local...); Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirnbachCommunications | Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/birnbach-communications.