We marketing and PR professionals saw a lot in 2016: Apple’s fight with the government over privacy, Twitter’s potential sale, and don’t even get us started on the presidential election. After taking it all in, we have some ideas about what's next in marketing and PR. Here’s what some of Spark’s experts have to say:

- “Robots reporting stories (aggregating news feeds) will end up being a more reliable news source without the bias of subjectivity.” — Tim Donovan, Executive Vice President
- “More companies will diversify their communications mix to include more owned media and programmatic.” — Tim Donovan, Executive Vice President
- “Fake news and journalism will continue to impact people’s belief in the truthfulness of the media”. — Tim Donovan, Executive Vice President
- “The crusade against fake news will probably continue, which will impact publishers more than anything.” — Alexa Alioto, Director
- “More and more PR, communications, and marketing work will be project-based instead of long-term retainer relationships.” — Heather Gore, Senior Vice President
- “Sentiment analysis will provide the ability to understand discrete audiences so that marketers and communicators can tailor content and approach for specific groups.” — Heather Gore, Senior Vice President

- “Augmented reality will be the largest game changer in digital marketing.” — Stowe Boyd, Head of Research

- “I see growth in Snapchat, allowing brands to connect on a more personal level with users.” — Rozeta Andres, Account Executive
- “Snapchat should start to see more use cases across a variety of industries and audiences.” — Alexa Alioto, Director
- “Augmented reality hosted through social media platforms will see wider adoption.” — Alexander Romero-Wilson, Senior Analyst
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- “More and more brands will demand measurement standardization and success metric agreement across social platforms and digital channels.” — Alexander Romero-Wilson, Senior Analyst
- “Content will continue to be King but the Ace will be personalized audience targeting.” — Alexander Romero-Wilson, Senior Analyst

- “While not new, machine-driven narrative will become more significant in 2017.” — Tobin Trevarthen, Chief Narrative Officer
- “Narrative strategy tied to social equity will grow to become a key differentiator for businesses.” — Tim Donovan, Executive Vice President