Poll: Budget cuts make for leaner, more focused comms efforts

Social media and standard PR outreach increase as communicators are forced to do more with less

Whenever we talk about communications department budgets, there’s always some good news and some bad news.

This time is no different.

A recent poll of 281 corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream revealed that 59 percent of companies hadn’t laid off communications staffers last year.

That’s the good news.

But the bad news is another 55 percent said their companies’ communications budgets will not increase this year. And, further, 28 percent of those polled said their budgets will be cut.

But, fortunately, communicators aren’t getting discouraged. Instead, they’re making sure that every dime is being spent wisely. They’re weeding out costly and unnecessary programs and spending more time on social media and standard PR channels. They’re hopeful that communications budgets have already bottomed out and will soon begin to be on the rise.