By Autumn Marie (Rwanda)
Founder and Managing Director, KGL FWD and Rwanda Communications Network
It is said to whom much is given, much is required. As PR professionals in Africa, we are not merely telling our client’s stories, we are telling the stories that have the power to change the narrative of Africa. This is a great privilege, opportunity, and responsibility. At times it may also feel like a lot of pressure, but I hope that we face it with vibrant excitement and energetic enthusiasm, knowing that we have the power to play a role in shaping what the world sees and hears about this great continent.
As a PR professional based in Rwanda, I have seen firsthand the role PR can play and the need for it in shaping the narrative of a country.
When I first moved here in 2017, many people in the US were not aware of the innovative strides the country had made and it quickly became evident to me that if I were to do PR in this market its impact would extend far beyond my clients.
In the past, we had to depend on mainstream outlets to tell the story of Africa to the world. These mainstream outlets often created and perpetuated biases with the stories they told, the perspectives from which they told them, and the headlines they used to tell them. Technology and digital connectivity have completely transformed this. We now have the ability to reach people around the world at our fingertips with our phones, tablets, and laptops. We have more channels, more access, and more points of engagement than at any other time in history.
The Public Relations and Communication Association’s State of the African PR Landscape 2022 report spoke to 550 PR professionals and found that 51% accredited digital and social media as playing the most important role in PR in their country.
According to Kepios, there are currently 4.74 billion people on social media around the world. That is 59.3% of the global population and usage is exponentially increasing daily. 190 million users worldwide joined social media in the one year from October 2021 to October 2022.
According to the International Trade Association, as of 2021, the African continent leads mobile internet usage a full 13% above the global average.
In addition, 2021 Eurostat data showed that 72% of internet users ages 16-74 in the EU read news sites, newspapers, and news magazines online and PEW Research Center reported in 2021 that more than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes,” including 60% who say they do so often.
With such a large percentage of people consuming news online and communicating digitally, some have begun to question if it will make the PR profession obsolete. On the contrary, it presents an opportunity for us as PR professionals to tell stories in a greater variety of ways, across more channels and using a greater variety of mediums. With people having so much direct access and engagement, it increases the need for reputation management and crisis management which ranked second and third place in levels of importance following digital and social media in PRCA’s report. It creates more of a need for PR professionals and generates new roles such as advising clients how to navigate and harness the new constantly changing platforms and tools.
The digital landscape has made PR more necessary than ever for the continent. We have more reach than ever before, which provides opportunities for more impact than ever before.
Our work can play a larger role in shifting and expanding narratives than ever before. But to do so, we will need to be open to innovation, change, and new ideas. We will need to be willing to be flexible in our practice and invest time to constantly learn and relearn. Most importantly, we need to be open to young people leading.
It is these young people who use social media and content in their daily lives who will breathe new energy into the industry and together we will go far to change the narrative of Africa using the digital landscape.