The short answer is no. Public Relations, the way it is modeled today, is not ready for 2008 and the major shift will again trend towards social media. But the longer answer is; "perhaps, but only if they do these three things." Now I realize that there are more than three, but these are the three that I keep coming around to when I'm talking with folks about PR and social media.
1) Understand How the Life of a Journalist has Changed
Publishing 2.0 had a good summary post of the recent post from Kara Swisher and the fact that she is now all digital. This is, of course, been happening for some time now and there are many journalists that we all work with who have gone 100% digital. At the same time there are hundreds of journalists who are not only continuing to write for a print publication, but they also need to put up daily blog posts, record a podcast and even record video interviews (all on the same paycheck, by the way). Let's summarize: more work, more deadlines, same hours, same pay.
Posts abound about how PR people can better "pitch" bloggers and the new journalists; but here's the thing, all of these suggestions really boil down to the same core principles many of us were taught when we started in this business.
- Read the publication (insert blog, video, podcast for "publication"), not just once, but each and every day;
- Get to know the media person before you pitch her/him...don't "pitch" anyone, that is for a sales person. Call her and ask them how they want to be contacted (trust me, Cision is never right), what are the working on...just TALK to the person with zero agenda;
- Tell your client that they are better off focusing on five key publications/blogs that will drive sales instead of 50 publications/blogs that will hopefully garner some coverage. Ask them, if it was possible, would they rather send a sales person to five people they know need their product or to 100 people that may need their product. In our business we can determine these five;
- Say no to your boss if they ask you to send out a blast email or to simply email a press release out to a bunch of people. Unless that press release states that your client has cured cancer, and even then you better be sending to the right people, it's just going to tick people off;
2) Begin to Understand that Media/Blogger Relations is Now a Small Part of Your Job
Media relations, traditional and new, remains the cornerstone of public relations, but each day our profession is shifting to the more pure concept of directly communicating with a community (customers, users, partners, investors, consumers, etc). Rather than purely relying on getting our information out through the press we can now communicate directly with the public AND have them directly interact with us. Now while you are learning how to better create relationships with the new media landscape, you must also now grab a better understanding of all the ways in which to create a conversation with your audience. This of course means blogging, microblogging, social networks, user forums/events, wikis, video and more.
So PR person reading this post, have you ever posted to a blog? Created/edited an online video? Posted to YouTube? Have a Facebook profile? Know what the hell Twitter is? Do you use RSS? If statistics hold consistent across our PR industry (see Forrester Technographics for social media participation) than the safe bet is that the answer is probably not.
"Kyle, chill, we have designers, developers and new media gurus who can tell me that stuff, you are such a geek."
"But aren't you the client contact? Aren't you responsible for your communications strategy? Shouldn't you be able to understand and even participate in these realms of communication before you demand that of your audience? Do you even know how to find out where people are talking about you, your company, your product?"
"But, but...I have really good relationships with vertical press..."
3) Your Business Model is Changing
This is, often times, the most difficult aspect for PR agency management/executives to understand and implement. The rise of citizen journalism, user-generated content and social media also means that the way you charge for services has to change. This can be true for internal PR resources, but for the most part this is important to the agency folks. Why does a company need a full team from you that will be pitching the media all day long? Will they really want to pay a retainer for your services when in fact what needs to happen is to create a place for your customers to talk with each other and prospects?
Get creative with your clients! What about payment based on the achievement of business goals..I know, shudder to think actually being paid based on results. Measurement is a terrific byproduct of social media, thus you can work an agreement with a company where you will get paid based on people you drive to their site or demo or whatever it is you want them to travel over towards. Ultimately this won't even be enough and agencies are going to have to completely implode and go in a new direction (ore on that in a future post), but for now you better be thinking about how to evolve your business model pronto.
/kff
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