Do you remember what life was before social media? I'm a Millennial, so I find it a little bit difficult, but I suppose for the older generations painting a picture between then and now must be quite shocking, especially for those working in the media – either in PR and communications or in journalism. Describing what's changed, how and why is the easy part. Adopting these changes and adapting to the new way of business for an effective modus operandi at work is the difficult bit if you are not a digital native.

So, let's dive into some cool infographics and interesting research findings from a few new studies in the areas of social media, journalism and PR.

First stop: our daily activities before and after the emergence of social media.

Then and Now

At the bottom of this post you can find an infographic from Zerofox that takes us a walk down memory lane, showing us what non-digital assets we used to rely on and their new social versions. Some of these include:

• post-its –> our 140 character tweets
• Polaroid cameras –> Instagram as our photo documentation tool of choice
• cork boards –> our digital Pinterest boards
• rolodexes –> our LinkedIn contacts

Funnily enough, I still have a cork board at home, but I use to pin little brochures or tickets from places I've been – for example the ticket from the amazing Sade concert I went to a few years back or the card I got from ShaunTerventionUK. So basically memories and things I've received offline, in real life, things you can touch.

There have been many discussions lately about why the PR industry must evolve and how it needs to change its business model. At the World PR Forum two weeks ago, Anne Gregory urged PR to reach for a higher purpose and stop obsessing with tactics, but to assert its role as a management discipline.

Recently, Richard Edelman proposed that PR should move into a much more mission-critical role – Communications Marketing with communications being a full partner of marketing, beyond just building credibility to becoming the change agent.

But by far the strongest and most inspiring idea I've come across lately is a visual guide by Brian Solis, Vision and Cision and brilliantly illustrated by Hugh MacLeod.

Released just last week, the eBook outlines a new vision for the PR industry to harness technology and deliver business outcomes. It's a manifesto for building relationships in the digital age. And as we know, building relationships is at the very core of PR.

But first, why the need to evolve?

My last piece got me thinking about how much has changed in so little time and particularly about how much the world of PR has been impacted by the Internet and social media. I did a whole research on this topic when I was writing my first dissertation two years ago.

However, a lot has happened since then and I wonder how relevant my research findings still are...

You might think, two years is not enough for that much to change, but actually, it's plenty.

Speaking about social media for PR, many practitioners believe that social media has simply offered additional tools and channels, but the nature of the practice has remained the same. I partly agree with that. Yes, PR is about building meaningful relationships with people and organisations and about establishing a positive reputation. And yes, social media has given us many more tools to do our daily jobs.

But the bigger picture in my opinion is not just about how social media has impacted PR, but about how it has influenced human nature and behaviour: about how we as individuals now connect, interact, make decisions, believe or disbelieve, communicate and present ourselves to the rest of the world.

Why is that important for our industry?

Every day I come across an interesting study and I want to dive into it to learn more about the research findings and then write a blog post with the key takeaways and my views. Unfortunately, I do need to sleep too. Indeed, from a professional's perspective it's hard to keep up with the tons of valuable research studies and analyses that are being released all the time. Information overload is our reality...

This is why when I saw the following infographic from the Institute for Public Relations I thought "Wow, this is spot on!" The infographic summarises the latest key issues and trends from the industry's top social media studies – one infographic, many studies.

This is something I would've found very useful when I was doing my research for my dissertation.

I would've had an overview of the top social media for PR studies in one place as a great reference for me to dig deeper in each study if I wanted to. Just knowing that those studies existed would've saved me a lot of time trying various keywords on Google search and bouncing from website to website for days to find the relevant and trustworthy sources.

A few months ago I participated in the largest transnational survey on strategic communication worldwide - the European Communication Monitor (ECM). The results were published a few days ago and, as always, I was eager to find out to what extent my input corresponded to the answers given by the other participants and if I had correctly identified the same emerging trends in the field as they have. As it turns out, I seem to be on the same page as most other practitioners.

Here's some research background first:

The ECM 2014 surveyed 2,777 communications professionals from 42 countries to study key issues of communication management and public relations, the digital age, networking, leadership, gender and mobile media.

The research findings confirm that without any doubt the digital age has transformed how communicators work, interact and share experiences. However, the rise of online channels and social media not only have major strategic implications, but also bring about considerable challenges for professionals: