Posts Tagged ‘online PR’
E-Consultancy roundtable: Who owns online PR?
May 23rd, 2008
Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to attend E-Consultancy’s quarterly roundtable event on the topic of Online PR.
I’m told it was the busiest it has ever been - clearly Online PR is a hot subject of discussion at the moment. The room was packed out with marketing and PR managers from a wide range of sectors including finance, technology, travel and publishing etc. In attendance on the agency side were myself, Simon Collister of Edelman, Drew Benvie of Hotwire, and Karl Havard of search agency Propellernet.
At the heart of the two-hour discussion was the burning question: “Who owns Online PR?”. Although we jumped around discussing related subjects such as research and measurement, budget and resouce allocation, to name but a few…the crux of the argument repeatedly came back to how we define Online PR, and ultimately who should own it.
One brand-side attendee summed up many people’s thoughts exactly: “Are you talking about sending out your views to your audiences who happen to be reading it in an online format rather than on paper, or are you talking about SEO? SEO is often treated as a different silo and managed by a different division, who are unaware of what the marketing department is doing. That is where the definition becomes a bit blurred.”
On the PR side, there thankfully seemed to be a conscenus of opinion that what we’re talking about here is PR- whether we’re defining it as offline or online. Online PR is no more than PR in the digital space.
From my perspective, social media is taking us back to the original cornerstone of PR - that being two-way conversation. There is a danger in continuing to segregate ‘Online PR’ as something separate, that should have separate ROI and budgets attached. This will continue to reinforce the problem of Online PR existing as an afterthought or bolt-on to wider marketing and PR efforts.
Surely it’s better than we focus on breaking down these silos, as has happened to a certain extent in the advertising industry, so that we can start to achieve a truly integrated campaign that shares the same objectives and strategy?
One search expert in attendance suggested online has outpaced the traditional PR agencies, with some trying to re-position themselves to grab this online concept, and make sure they portray that they know it. “When actually the digital agencies know the online mediums and don’t know PR, while the PR agencies know PR but don’t necessarily know the online mediums,” he argued.
At Liberate Media we’re taking a collaborative approach, forging partnerships with experts who offer complimentary services, e.g. SEO, but respect our strategic communications skills. By bringing essential new skills in-house, e.g. social media/technology expertise, we have also been able to evolve more quickly into a consultancy set-up to take ownership of online PR.
Who holds the key to the future of online PR?
May 15th, 2008
There’s been a raging debate in the Liberate Media office over the last few days, the reasons for which will become clear soon. As a result, i thought i would share some thinking on one of the issues: Has the PR industry lost ownership of online PR?
In my opinion yes…but PR is regaining lost ground.
So why? Well i think it relates to a slow uptake of the basics of online PR, and i don’t mean by the few, i mean by the many…the PR industry as a whole. Going back a few years, when online PR was all about keywords and online distribution, the PR industry was slow to react. SEOs took the lead and as the experts in this field it made sense that they would. However, as online PR techniques became more mainstream and with the introduction of the social media press release, the PR industry, or certain factions at least, has finally got its act together.
However, the argument has moved on in this time, communicating via the social web demands more than just technical knowledge, it requires strategic thinking and an understanding of the fundamentals of open communications. This is where i feel the PR industry must step up.
Strategic thinking and a basic understanding of the fundamentals of communications should be where the PR industry is unmatched. No other marketing discipline has the background or the qualifications to match up. Furthermore, many of the key thinkers in the social media sector have PR or comms backgrounds, and social media and online PR should go hand-in-hand.
So why the delay? Why is the relevancy of online PR still being questioned? Why is knowledge still so low (as an industry)? Don’t get me wrong the trailblazers are doing a fine job, producing amazing work and sharing insightful thinking, but what about the masses? Is online PR still just seen as a nerdy thing for the tech team? Maybe.
Will we see a breakout group of PRs, SEOs and social media experts lead the sector away from PR - is it already happening? I think so.
PR professionals that are still under the illusion that they can survive without clearly understanding the online landscape, and even those that still see online as just a channel to reach a specific audience are going to have a rude awakening in the near future.
December 11th, 2007
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