In 2025, AKCG media relations practitioners served clients from coast to coast, earning media coverage that has the power to shape reputations, change behaviors and influence attitudes.
The stories we placed helped independent schools stand out in crowded marketplaces by highlighting the impressive students and faculty who bring the campus alive. We supported senior living organizations in changing the perception of what it means to age in community by illustrating the personalized, engaged experiences of older adult residents and members. We built relationships with clients and media alike and we can’t wait to do more of it in 2026.
As we celebrate our 2025 wins with our partners, AKCG’s expert media relations pros reflected on what’s next in 2026 and how we’ll be leveling up our strategies to keep delivering results for our clients.
Concierge-level Media Relations
Adam Dvorin, AKCG’s chief media relations strategist, says media relations practitioners must provide “concierge-level” media relations to break through – and importantly, to become a trusted media source the media come back to time and again.
Media practitioners who combine creativity and savvy with more service than what would have been considered typical will win. This becomes more acute as two dynamics converge — the additional shrinking of newsroom staffs and the access to devices that can shoot video and high-quality photos quickly and inexpensively. Examples of extra service: Need extra video or more photos? Check. Need 2-3 quotes versus an interview. Check. Or vice versa — need an interview instead of 2-3 quotes. And so on.
Visual First Storytelling
Legacy print media has been on the decline, but while the print product may be waning, these media outlets are not losing credibility. Traditional print media is pivoting to serve news to audiences in formats they prefer: video and social media.
Senior Account Manager Hannah Merschen consumes national and regional media daily. Front pages of newspapers look more or less the same, but the online websites of these legacy outlets have looked a bit different in the past few months with more video content taking up valuable real estate on homepages:
Major print outlets like The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer are investing heavily in video, which raises the bar on visual storytelling even when we’re pitching traditional print outlets. We need to think in terms of what the visual package looks like alongside the written story.
In the same vein, Account Executive Taylor Madison is seeing social media-first storytelling take priority at legacy outlets, including print and broadcast.
As outlets rely more on Instagram Reels, TikTok, and other social platforms to tell stories, it signals that reporters are also seeking different angles, visuals, and formats in the pitches they receive. This shift becomes more pronounced as audiences gravitate toward quick, vertical video storytelling, and stations recognize that social engagement often surpasses traditional broadcast viewership. The result: pitches that offer strong visuals, natural sound, quick-turn human moments, or social-friendly hooks rise to the top, while standard announcements need more creative framing to compete.
Real Hooks Needed
AKCG regularly maintains editorial calendars that help plan for what’s upcoming and that inspire storymining. Awareness days, holidays and other date-dependent milestones can spur creative ways to bring clients into the conversation. Still, Associate Emma Engle cautions from latching too tightly onto awareness days and holidays.
Many outlets are stretching to make holiday gift guides and seasonal hooks work, even for stories that aren’t naturally “holiday.” That makes holiday angles more competitive. If we’re going to use a holiday or awareness day as a hook, we need to reserve this strategy for stories with a real, authentic tie-in or spirit instead of forcing the connection.
Navigating Shifting Industries
In the education and senior living spaces, we are seeing an evolution in these types of organizations and the overall narrative of each industry.
Associate Sam Deeney works closely with education clients and follows the national conversation to inform media relations strategy.
We’re seeing a lot of tension in education. From K-12 to higher education, changes in policy, technology and student-teacher dynamics are creating anxiety about the future.
In higher education, national policy has impacted important research efforts and we’re seeing a shift in the perception of the value of a college degree. In K-12 education, many schools aren’t quite sure how to handle the explosion of AI – some view it as a tool, others view it as cheating. We’re also seeing a change in the behaviors of students in terms of their communication with teachers and preparedness for class. And to cap it off, national test scores are lower than projected.
Schools and education thought leaders that have a solution to these challenges are much needed.
In the senior living space, organizations are facing a monumental milestone: By 2030, every Baby Boomer will be over 65. This represents not only a demographic shift, but a cultural one. Vice President Angelica Flynn notes this is a shift that has serious implications on senior living communities, home health care agencies and other home and community-based care organizations.
Older adults are a huge audience and a one-size fits all solution will not cut it when it comes to how they choose to live out their golden years. We’re finally seeing a shift in how the general population perceive senior living communities – more people are waking up to the fact that they are not sterile institutions as stereotypically portrayed. They can be places of enrichment, lifelong learning and more.
Media is hungry for these stories; they want to see what truly makes one community different over another. They want to know about the ways seniors can age safely in place at home. Media want to give accessible, useful content to the significant percentage of their audiences who are 65+ or who have a loved one who is 65+.
AI, Of Course
It simply wouldn’t be a forward-looking outlook without considering the implications of AI. We know AI and GEO have made media relations even more crucial to an organization’s reputation. Account Manager Kenneth Hilario urges media relations pros to be strategic in our usage of AI.
AI has already changed the game, and it will continue to have profound changes on media relations — and the world at large. We need to embrace it because, like Google before it, LLMs (“large language models”), such as ChatGPT are changing how our brands, including those of our clients, appear in searches and in citations. We must shift our media relations strategies so they’re LLM-friendly.
Our team’s collective expertise positions clients to succeed as the media landscape evolves. Want to learn how you can accelerate your reputation in 2026? Reach out to us here.
