“The only constant in life is change.” — Heraclitus
If that ever felt like a philosophical abstraction, 2025 brought it crashing into reality. The pace of change this year was unlike anything I’ve experienced in communications. Some shifts were energising, others unsettling, but all of them demanded a deeper, more honest reckoning with how our profession is evolving.
AI sat at the centre of that transformation. While the headlines were filled with agency mergers, the real story was unfolding inside teams. AI became the professional baseline. It allowed communicators to research, analyse, plan, write, measure, and optimise at a speed and volume that simply wasn’t possible even 18 months ago. The impact was immediate and, for many, brutal: a few writers and designers I know who have years of experience were suddenly made redundant. Not because their creativity and skills lost value, but because the economics of the industry changed. Teams who have embraced AI outpace those who have not. This wasn’t about replacing people though, it’s about whether people were willing to work with the tools that now define the pace of our profession.
And yet, amid this technological acceleration, something fascinating happened: PR, good, old-fashioned earned media and where I started out my career, proved more decisive than ever. One of my clients generated more than 44 million earned impressions in a single week; that’s the whole of Canada’s population! That kind of reach is extraordinary not just because of the number, but because of what it represents: awareness, credibility, reach and trust.
Social platforms, meanwhile, were quietly transforming themselves into search engines. Followers mattered far less than relevance. Content had to be discoverable. Posts became answers, not announcements. Suddenly, every communicator needed to think the way SEO strategists think: what questions are people asking? What language do they use? How does your content help them solve a problem?
Rethinking Social Media Posting Frequency
This shift demanded a new kind of cadence. Algorithms now require volume because they need enough material to understand who you are, what you talk about, and which audiences should see you. Brands had to unlearn the outdated fears of “posting too much” and accept that frequency is no longer an indulgence; it’s a form of training data.
The irony, of course, is that while platforms became more technical, my clients’ content that resonated most was still rooted in something deeply human. First-person narratives, testimonials, honest accounts of lived experience. These continued to outperform slick campaigns and clever slogans. It turns out that even in a search-driven ecosystem, people still gravitate toward stories that feel true.
Crisis communications, meanwhile, reminded us of its most unforgiving rule: hesitation is lethal. I saw leaders struggle this year. These are good people, smart people, but they delayed sharing critical information with stakeholders for days or weeks while they “got their ducks in a row.” But crises don’t wait. Information vacuums are dangerous. And with every day that passed, the risks multiplied: stakeholder trust eroded, misinformation circulated, media scrutiny intensified, and brand values were questioned. Marketing Lessons 2025: Once a narrative escapes you, regaining control can be nearly impossible.
Still communications fundamentals held steady: transparency, clarity, presence. But 2025 reinforced the cost of indecision. Stakeholders don’t expect perfection; they expect communication. When organisations go silent, they don’t protect themselves. They are simply surrendering the story.
And through all this industry-level change, my own practice shifted too. I made a deliberate decision this year to work closely with fewer clients so I can go deeper rather than wider. I hoped it might lighten my workload (it didn’t). What it did do was make the work profoundly more meaningful. It was my first time sitting on the “client side” of an agency relationship, and it was illuminating. It reminded me that most people simply don’t attach the same emotional weight to the work that I do. And it confirmed — sometimes to my surprise — just how much depth of knowledge I’ve accumulated over my career. I also relearned a lesson I seem destined to relearn annually: good enough really is good enough.
Marketing Lessons 2025
If I could tell my January 2025 self anything, it would be this: working more closely with clients means caring more deeply, and caring more deeply requires boundaries. It’s difficult to protect and enforce them. But I know I can’t do my best work if I allow the work to bury me.
So, what does all of this mean for 2026? It means communicators must embrace AI as a core competency, not a curiosity. It means we should continue investing in owned content as the foundation of brand authority. It means earned media remains one of the most efficient and credible tools we have. It means social discovery will continue to reward relevance over reach. And above all, it means storytelling, real, human storytelling, remains the beating heart of our craft.
2025 didn’t just challenge our profession; it set the terms for what comes next. And the future belongs to those who can balance speed with judgment, technology with humanity, and strategy with soul.
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