PR Firms Are Super-Bullish on '22

Ninety five percent of PR firms surveyed by Davis+Gilbert LLP expect to increase their revenues during 2022.

That would be on top of the projected 77 percent increase for this year. Healthcare, technology and corporate/financial firms showed the greatest growth.

The Davis+Gilbert Public Relations Industry 2021 Survey Trends + Highlights report found that 38 percent of firms have goals to increase the number of people of color on staff during the next six months. That’s up from 28 percent a year ago.

On the DEI front, 72 percent of firms have established a pay equity plan to ensure that all BIPOC are being compensated fairly.

Seventy percent of firms are tracking and reporting workforce diversity data on an annual basis to create accountability for the firm. Another 70 percent have donated to groups promoting racial justice.

The surveyed firms lagged in developing a training program for Black men/women and rotating participants in different sectors to find their specialty (33 percent) and in setting up supplier diversity programs with set goals (30 percent).

The three biggest challenges for 2022: retaining talent; hiring new people to keep up with the workload and flat or decreasing client budgets.

Is TikTok harming kids? The chairman of a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee wants documents and information from TikTok about its “troubling practice of showing dangerous content to minors, including sex- and drug-related videos and videos peddling COVID-19 misformation,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) wrote to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Nov. 10.

The social media platform has more than 1B users, of which 130M are aged 10 to 19, living in the US.

TikTok’s algorithm learns users’ interests and exploits their vulnerabilities much faster than other platforms, according to Krishnamoorthi.

“The subcommittee is also deeply concerned that TikTok has failed to adequately police itself despite high volumes of inappropriate content on the app, especially given the ease with which children as young as nine can create TikTok accounts,” the Congressman wrote.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sept 8 that TikTok failed to respond to complaints of inapproriate sexual content on an account that it created. It alerted the platform about the 1,276 bondage and sex-related videos that appeared on its feed. TikTok only removed about half of them.

Krishnamoorthi wants to know what actions TikTok plans to take to adjust its algorithm and remove harmful content.