Dear PR: It’s Not You, It’s Me

Post image for Dear PR: It’s Not You, It’s Me

photo credit: riger advertising

Dear Public Relations,

It’s not you, it’s me.

Ok, it’s a lot you and a lot of what I want to do with my life.

Confession: I’ve fallen out of love with you. The traditional you. You’re not my type.

Why? It might come to your head that I’ve fallen for the shiny (somewhat) new kid on the block, social media. My new job might indicate that. Social Media in its form currently sprang on the scene and all of the sudden every single public relations person deemed themselves master of all social media. You’re being forced to evolve a bit. I dig the new haircut, by the way.

Silly, right? Here you were, just trucking along with traditional media outreach, cold calling reporters, building media lists, “integrating” with the advertising side but still being silo’ed, plopping big binders on your clients desk with impressions/multipliers, putting clients in the best light, etc.

Then that New Kid on the Block (kind of like Donny) just came and swiped some professionals from you. Burn. 3rd degree.

There will always be a place in my heart for what you used to be. Now it’s up to the professionals to keep making the changes.

xo,

LAF

This post has been brewing a bit in my mind for the past two months or so, and if you’ve noticed, I haven’t blogged in two weeks, except over at Radian6. Since joining, I’ve had the opportunity to further cultivate my mindset that just because you’re in PR, doesn’t mean you’re in social. At my last agency, I rarely did anything besides edit a press release, as I was fully immersed in social strategy from a PR/ad perspective. Let me tell you – once you don’t have to cold call anymore, it just isn’t appealing. I was still good at it – I just grew from it with other opportunities.

Do PR pros have a place at the strategy table? Absolutely. Should you be working with your advertising side on joint social media ventures? When it’s appropriate at the certain stages, hell yes. Integrated Marketing Communications has never been more true than it is now.

Traditional as we know it won’t work anymore. Can you use traditional tools? Absolutely. Do your formulas have to shift a bit? Do you need to break the multiplier mentality? Yeah, you should have done that last week. Press releases will still be there, as people still want print media and online media.

Analytics/advertising reporting is completely different from a PR/communications perspective – but agencies can use the two in presentation. It all goes back to measurable objectives and what the brand wants to accomplish/measure.

How strong do you think that is?

Dig what you read? Share with others:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • FriendFeed
  • LinkedIn
  • Posterous
  • Twitter
  • kellybriefworld
    Lots of corporate IT departments are asking themselves whether or not to block social media (aka Enterprise 2.0) applications like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc. What they often don’t realize is that they can safely enable these applications through the use of smart policies. That way employees can take advantage of the benefits of these powerful platforms, while risky or counterproductive features can be selectively blocked! Palo Alto Networks has put together a great whitepaper to help you understand how this new firewall technology works. It’s called “To Block or Not. Is That the Question?” and you can find it here: http://bit.ly/d2NZRp. Let me know what you
  • Brad Marley
    PR and social media, while they may overlap from time to time, are still two different animals. In the traditional sense, the goal of PR is to drive coverage for our client/company in the media. Period. Sure, the reporter who wrote the story might tweet about it after the fact, but we're more concerned with seeing the story. No matter what, there will always be a place for cold calls and media list editing. That's just how it works. If you don't like, well, I can't say that I blame you.

    However, where social media and PR can live harmoniously is in the house of created content. There's a shift happening where we are seeing PR rely more on creating their own content to push out across their in-house social media networks, rather than pitching the story, staffing the interview, and waiting to see the final result. While it's my experience that negative stories are few and far between, there's always that anxiety around how our story will be represented.

    Just because most PR professionals have Twitter accounts doesn't mean they fancy themselves social media professionals. But you're right in that the lines have blurred, and maybe not necessarily for the better. I think over time, as more social media specific positions are created, will we see a distinct difference in responsibility. But for now, as we still get a grasp on social media, it will just sort of fall to the PR person.

    Sorry for the long comment.
  • mikeschaffer
    Has Facebook created an "UberLike" button yet?

    I recently left a traditional PR career after 7 years to go full-throttle in social media. Cold-calling, list-generating, event-planning...see you later. I enjoyed every second of it, but it was time for me to move on.

    However, the big caveat here, is that I truly believe the background in more conventional communications greatly prepared me for the next phase of my career.

    Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the rest are all tools. Knowing how to use them is great...but the SKILL is knowing how to communicate. That's what's sticking around forever.
  • Janet Aronica
    Great post as always, Lauren! I had a great conversation with a Boston Biz Journal reporter last week regarding PR. He solidified a lot of things that I already knew, which was mostly the amount of research and calculation that is necessary for good PR. Switching from the agency to an in-house marketing position, it's been interesting for me to see how marketing money is spent and I've developed a better sense of compassion for the pressure clients were under--along with a sense of curiosity about what the best business structure/strategy for a PR agency really is...
  • Rich Becker
    Lauren,

    What a fun post. Certainly, it's always more fun to build consumer or customer relations without the skepticism of the media (and they have skepticism for good reason). Well, we can hope the remaining professionals always remember that you don't always have to call a reporter because you have an agenda.

    Best,
    Rich
  • Lesleyaveyard
    I love this!! I like the way you wrote it, I like what you say :)

    Change the approach, change the mind set - and collaborate!
  • davinabrewer
    "We've grown apart, I've changed and you.. haven't." How's that Lauren? That's my take, it's not that social media is newer, shinier or better, it's just developed and adapted in ways in step with the changes in traditional media. It's about being flexible, responsive to the new rather than clinging to the old, the traditional. ITA that PR has its place at the head table, that Integrated Marketing Communications should lead the way. Nice letter.
  • Taylor G
    Interesting post!! Look forward to seeing even more as you continue to experience changes in the industry....
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post: