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As any PR professional knows, prediction pieces are all the rage this time of year. Executives, industry experts and analysts are all reflecting on the past year and hypothesizing about what is ahead. The year’s biggest trends, the ones that fell by the way side and what will be the next big thing are all popular discussion points. The PR industry is no exception of the prediction piece. Similar to other industries, these insights help us PR folks identify what was considered a success and understand how the industry is doing as a whole. Last week, The Council of Public Relations released survey results that touched upon everything from the overall state of the PR industry in 2014 to the biggest opportunities and challenges that we will encounter in 2015. As I noted earlier this month in my video recap of PAN’s activity in Q3 – 2014 has been and continues to be a phenomenal year for PAN Communications. As excited as I am about the record year PAN is having, it made me happy to see that other PR agencies are experiencing the same sort of success. According to the results, 2014 will be another positive gain for the PR industry with the majority of PR Council firms stating that they are on their way to another year of revenue growth. Nearly two-thirds of participating firms (65 percent) are reporting that their top line is up, with the average growth for 2014 projected among all participating firms around 6 percent. The survey also identified five areas that will provide the biggest growth opportunities with clients in 2015. After reading through these five areas, it’s clear that a shift is coming for the PR industry. Here are the five areas that will provide the biggest growth opportunities in 2015:

We all have bad weeks, both personally and professionally. But few individuals or organizations can say they had a seven day stretch like the NFL just did. What is normally a greatly celebrated time of year with the opening of the season, turned into a week-long crisis communication exercise because of two players abusing spouses and children. Potentially even more damaging than the players’ actions, many are calling for the removal of the league’s commissioner because of his inability to have proper policies in place when players misbehave off-the-field. As a high-profile multi-billion dollar industry, the behaviors of few have impacted the actions of many in regard to the NFL. The league finds itself in a reactive position to the news cycle with fans and partners.

In what can only be described as action without foresight, last night, DiGiorno Pizza tweeted out an endorsement for its frozen cheese and tomato leveraging the hashtag #WhyIStayed – a hashtag created to spark conversation around domestic violence stemming from the recent release of the Ray Rice tape.