The Wildfire labs team is always looking ahead to the future of PR. As part of that initiative we’ve published a new report today, Surviving the post-social media apocalypse. 

With user numbers either plateauing or declining, lacklustre earnings reports, and the rise of the ‘Facebook-never’ generation, it is possible to discern the early warning signs of a ‘post-social media age’. And of course, that’s to say nothing of the reputational damage being inflicted on the social media majors as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which may well be looked back on as a major turning point for the fortunes of social media platforms.

It’s fair to say that PR professionals were caught on the hop by the rise of social media over a decade ago. Many simply didn’t appreciate the radical shift that would be wrought by the digital technologies that we now take for granted. However, the industry cannot afford to repeat the mistake if the social media end times ever were to arrive.

Just to show what a post-social media world might look like, our own Twitter feed ‘went dark’ over the weekend. The collapse of the social media giants would create a seismic shift in the PR industry though — and PR professionals need to be prepared.

Surviving the post-social media apocalypse looks at the key trends that are currently undermining the global social media platforms in more detail. We also offer our views on what the PR industry can do to stay on top of a digital world in flux and grasp the opportunities that are sure to arise in the post-social media age.

Download the full report here: wildfirepr.com/labs/social-apocalypse