Moving PR forward

March 16th, 2009 by Andy Merchant

I’ve just been reading a great PR conversation from Creative Agency Secrets entitled Are PR Agencies a Dying Breed?

Here are some of the questions asked and answers given:

In a world riddled with ADD are PR agencies still relevant?

Solis - Twitter is changing everything - an opportunity as communicators / brand managers.  Real-time flow.  Is it distracting? Where do people go from Twitter - they click out and go to a load of new and different places - discovering information.  building a network around context.  Engage with people who are interested in you curating interesting. As a PR person you have to not share what you’re having for lunch…..
you should curate information - you are the brand that you represent. information.

I agree with what Brian Solis says here especially the bit around Twitter conversation:  As a PR person you have to not share what you’re having for lunch…

You often see top 10, 20, 50 Twitter PR lists and it’s not until you drill down into the list, that you realise a lot of the conversations are not informative/helpful but simply represent - me time!

I say: Good on you for getting on board, but make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons, not just because everyone else is! Let your followers know what information you are reading, the tools you’re trying and the links that you are bookmarking. Afterall, you’re bookmarking it for a reason, and chances are others will think the same too.

How are PR agencies redefining themselves for SM?

Shankman - Press releases will be dead within 24 months.  The smart agencies are realising that they have to play in this world and anyone can now play in it….. 70k people are doing their own PR using these tools.   Dedicated people read the blogosphere just like you used to read magazines.  The beauty is that young PRs have been doing it already. Search twitter.com find ways to get involved - don’t try to own the conversation, engage and listen.

This is another view that Liberate Media is onboard with, hence the creation of Pressitt, a social media news release creation and publishing tool.

To sum up:

How can a PR firm engage a skeptical audience?

Rebecca Caroe - A firm should have familiarity with the tools and should work hand in hand with their clients.  Be upfront if you are writing a blog for your clients and you are an agency.  Be transparent.  If you are teaching the client how to use this stuff it ‘damn well better be the CEO’ because if you get caught you are sunk.

Twitter doesn’t make sense for all brands - but you should use it as a search tool.  A focus group for free.  If you are a brand, report back on jounalist work and get the news out on the social mediasphere.  Ask your agency to report back on it.  Peoplbrowser tracks a range of conversations on different platforms - a dashboard that’s free on the web. Each one has a different culture.  This will tell you how to engage in each one and the language they use.  Be a genuine participant in the communities.

The me-too syndrome is huge.  Everyone tracks useful information.  Agencies are not dying - but some will close.  You have to be traditional and also adapt these tools.  Mass-spamming emails of press releases is the wrong way to use these tools.  If you claim you are an SM expert I’ll check how many twitter followers you have to see if you are saying interesting stuff that others want to read.  If you are an expert in your industry people should find your talk engaging.  Before we didn’t have the ability to track.

Another comment Liberate Media concurs with, a lot of Liberate Media’s time is spent on social media R&D and every Friday afternoon is utilised for solely updating each other with the latest social media happenings, new tools, latest conversations, and forming of new ideas to increase our client’s online visibility.

The main problem at the moment is that lots of traditional media are stuggling, and as a result they are reshuffling structures and increasingly moving into the online space. If PR’s don’t do the same they will also be left behind, and I fear PR’s agencys without any digital knowledge, as they will be the ones to suffer first.

      

Tags: PR, Social media, twitter

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Blog, Digital communications, Digital media, Emerging technology, Social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.