Public Relations Tips from The Product Analyst, JookSMS, BAERING & Alex Azoury

In June 2020 — three months into the pandemic — EPR asked four PR industry practitioners how COVID-19 was reshaping the field. What follows is that roundup, preserved. Six years later, the technology has changed (AI engines have replaced press pitches for a lot of category-defining coverage), but the disciplines these operators named — clear messaging, crisis credibility, digital reinvention, real-time media relationships — became the load-bearing skills of the answer-engine era. Their 2020 read on the future turned out to be right.

Willie — Founder, The Product Analyst

"Coping up to the new normal era, public relations are affected greatly. The pandemic has taken a toll on the industry, thus pushing the workers to use up their available choices to serve the people."

"But as it is a double-edged sword, it totally does not have to be difficult all the time, for clear messages make it right. If carefully directed, the PR industry would be able to listen to the clients, identify the confusing points, offer effective solutions, respond with clarity and assurance to build trust."

"In an organization, public relations work is to maintain a corporate image to the public. They serve as the skin that protects the organization from any rumors and unfavorable stories that the company meets. During this pandemic, public relations are tested for their strength and capabilities to preserve the integrity of their company. Most people may think that this may end the role of advertising, yet for those small businesses, they ignite the flickering defense of each store. Public relations or advertising will never perish as the company sees them as armor to provide a unique forefront."

The discipline Willie named — reputation as the skin that protects the organization — was the through-line of the entire crisis cycle that followed. It still is.

Christopher Prasad — Marketing Manager, JookSMS

"A post-COVID-19 world will see a boom for the PR industry, as many companies face the potential backlash if they are to have COVID spikes within their workforce. People are going to be concerned about safety for some time to come, and believing a business is unsafe could do extreme damage to that business. Companies are likely to become more reliant on PR as they try to fight negative — and sometimes even false — stories surrounding safety and COVID-19."

Prasad called the reputational-liability boom early. The crisis communications function expanded through 2020–2023 in almost every category as employer, safety, and misinformation-adjacent stories became core PR responsibilities rather than edge cases.

Paige Berger — Media Strategist, BAERING

"Public relations is a constantly evolving field. The days of simply targeting earned media and calling it a day are long gone — and have been for a while. In a digital world, publicists have had to get creative with social media campaigns, creating experiences for consumers, crafting pitches that cut through the noise, and maybe even developing a brand journalism site."

"The current state of the world and the havoc that COVID-19 has wreaked on it will also change PR forever. Probably for the better. With the world forced to go remote, this has created newsrooms to get creative with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc., and to evolve the way the news is told. With the nation's new-found comfort with virtual events, interviews, and webinars, the ability to add live interviews into broadcasts has become available with an ease that wasn't previously there."

Berger's read on the discipline widening beyond earned media was the correct one. The 2020 pivot into virtual event production, digital PR, and brand-journalism sites became the foundation for what evolved into AI Communications and Generative Engine Optimization — the disciplines that now decide brand visibility inside the answer engines.

Alex Azoury — Founder & CEO, Home Grounds

"Public relations will always be a part of government and business, and those PR experts who specialize in crisis communications have been kept busy lately. Public relations is all about sharing accurate information and communicating in a manner that is helpful, reassuring, and clear. There is never a time this is more crucial than in a period of crisis. The fact remains that there will always be PR experts who look for the headlines instead of really understanding their client and how that client's message should be communicated to the relevant audience. The recent pandemic has demonstrated how the portrayal of events, coupled with incorrect or distorted data, can harm public perception and lead to a distrust of the public relations industry."

"Post-crisis public relations will continue to be influenced by the rise of technology. This means that specialists will build media relationships in real-time across different platforms. PR professionals will require better data analysis skills, the ability to interpret that information, and to see how it fits into the larger picture."

Azoury's call on data-analysis skill and real-time cross-platform relationships was the most prescient of the four. In 2026, PR operators who read AI-engine visibility data, prompt-set results, and Citation Share metrics are the ones producing measurable outcomes — the discipline documented across EPR's AI Communications and GEO coverage.

What held up in 2026

Six years on, the disciplines these four practitioners named — clear messaging, crisis credibility, digital reinvention, data-driven media relationships — are the load-bearing skills of the answer-engine era. The specific channels changed. The core PR discipline did not. Track ongoing coverage across EPR's Public Relations, Crisis Communications, and Media Training pillars.