Swindon & Wiltshire News
Business topics that will make the news in 2026 – Fiona Scott
What are the topics that will get people talking about your business in 2026? PR guru Fiona Scott of Scott Media looks at some upcoming trends.
Each year I look at stories and topics which are likely to trend in business and in the world of PR, story-telling and the media which can support thought leaders to consider what they comment on during the new year.
For 2026, here are ten topics that I think will be trending and will be central to story telling especially in the business press. Being prepared is always helpful if PR and media outreach is part of your strategy for business growth.
AI will continue to be a huge topic as it continues to develop at a pace beyond imagination. I predict the media will look more and more for ‘tech for good’ stories around this and positive uses of AI in life and business because the ‘bad’ stories will be easily available to them.
Aligned to the above is cyber security – this will continue to be a trending topic as it was this year and it will be big cases of hacks, scams and ransomware which will rise to the surface. Those who can offer solutions, suggestions and tips should keep on doing that – even if it’s just on social media because journalists will need those voices over time and they will search for them. Aim to be found.
PR and media outreach will become more and more important because people will search for goods or services using AI tools – and being found in that type of search will be more important. This means backlinks will be more and more critical and traditional SEO will have less value (sorry, not sorry). It also means backlinks might attract a fee.
Personal brand will take on more resonance than ever before. Again linked to AI and the sheer wealth of information at our fingertips – showing personality will become more and more important. Unless you have a brand which has its own personality and that’s very rare in the small business sector. Personality and being ‘human’ will be key to not disappearing into a sea of vanilla AI content.
Climate and sustainability – this will continue to be important. Demonstrating sustainability and climate awareness within a company has huge value, can affect you if you submit bids for tenders and can also help with recruitment and retention. Ask any younger members of staff if this is important to them.
Mental health, wellness, identity and well-being – this will continue to be a topic manifesting in all sorts of ways both positive and less positive. Sharing your initiatives and caring for your staff, your team or even yourself helps others. Enter awards around this if you take it seriously. Equally if you offer such a service talk about why, who you have helped (in general terms) and how you can help.
Community and hyper-local communities – in a world where anyone can talk about anything and the possibilities are vast, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Yet by having a PR or marketing strategy, my tip is to look for more hyper-local communities to share your message. This could be a specific geographical area where your business is based, or communities online where those who want your product or service are likely to hang out. Drop trying to be all things to everyone, it’s not achievable. Be something to a few. So if you sell knitting needles in Tidworth, embrace the community groups, being part of the community and then go on to social media and join knitting circles and groups. Then build your personality around knitting on TikTok for example.
Women in business – I believe this is a trend that will begin to blossom this year and keep going. In 2024, of all of the business funding available for growth, a mere 2.3 per cent globally went to female founded businesses and yet women run an estimated 34 per cent of businesses. That has to change and women will start speaking up about this and they will want to be seen to inspire future generations especially their own daughters.
Journeys make good stories – telling a story which charts some kind of journey tends to have more attraction to the traditional media than ever before. If this suits your business you must think pictures, pictures, pictures to illustrate this. You will have seen this many times but not considered it for your business. On social media, hairstylists do it often with ‘here is my client before their cut’ and ‘here is my client after their cut’ and probably images in between. This works for many businesses including trades, builders, property developers, creators of art work, event businesses. If you have or run a older business then anything which speaks to nostalgia, vintage, history including your own history has huge media appeal. So solicitors with an archive that they never look at or use and story in a musty attic – get researching now.
Finally the one thing which is at the heart of all story-telling – people stories. Tell stories about your people. These ‘people’ could be your staff, your suppliers, your collaborators, your colleagues, your clients or customers or guests and also ‘you’. This is one universal truth, people buy from people.
Fiona Scott is MD of Scott Media, author of The Hard Yards and Tales of a Backwater Journalist, podcaster at PR Not BS, and winner of the title UK Solopreneur of the Year 2025.
