Is there really a place for traditional PR in today’s social web world?

September 8th, 2009 | Leave a comment

With the nostalgic exception of the NY Times, I’ve stopped using print and network radio and TV for news on just about anything.

A finely chosen roll of blogs, plus my own Facebook, Twitter and Linked In networks makes it seemingly impossible for me to not know everything that is going on in tech, finance, movies and pop culture.  And all within a 45-minute timeframe each morning. If the headlines are interesting, I dig in, or else, I feel informed and move on with my day.

So, recently when a client asked me to source a PR agency, I took pause. As a corporate storyteller, I’ve been a strong believer in the value of PR for a long time and many of my friends are expert practitioners. But really, in today’s world, isn’t the concept of press release and pitch and Rolodex,  kind of retro, if not prehistoric?

And with trade rags gone, print mostly gone, an every increasing group of long tail influencers accessible to everyone, and everyone a participant in the social web, shouldn’t the PR agency go the way of the dusty brochure?

I decided to approach this with an open mind. So I took agency referrals from my trusted colleagues, and got face to face with a handful of top notch PR agencies and individuals on the west coast.  Some were just super smart folks. All with rolodexes with no holes. All were web and SEO savvy. And a few were storytellers par excellence.

What I discovered is that surprisingly, for the most part, the biz hasn’t changed.

Sure, everyone optimizes everything for SEO. And certainly there are many more influencers that had to be strategically targeted but at the top of the pyramid, you still had to negotiate for exclusivity and coverage. The core was online, the tools for outreach were many, but at the end of the day the way we received and interacted with the news was much more dramatically changed than the way it was made. You still have to drop the right pebble in the stream at the right place to make the ripples start. They just go on and on throughout new channels.

Hey, I knew that a great story, cleverly and honestly told would find an audience. What I rediscovered was that for companies that sell goods and services that touch the mainstream of the population, how the news got created and lobbied for wasn’t all that different. The social web is a channel to be managed, not a unique source.

Do I have this wrong? I’m certain that David Merman Scott (www.davidmermanscott.com) would disagree  on this. I was on his side of the argument until recently. There are exceptions of course, but they are not the rule…yet.

In my social web of a world, it seemed like things were all brand new. I wanted press relations to be also, but my experience to date tells me no. PR when it works makes you love your agency and be glad to pay. When it doesn’t, well, it’s an expensive line item to cut.  It’s been like that forever.

I can’t help believing that this still needs to change.

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  • David Olinger

    All forms of communication, whether through marketing, public relations, and even basic journalism are evolving, but the basics are still the same. And the best form of PR is still going to be that personal touch. Social media has made the world smaller, allowing easier connection. However, nothing beats in-person contact, especially with more valued contacts/clients.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Thnx David. I agree partly. Yes, touching people that matter is a good strategy but PR is about storytelling and social media has broadened the possibilities and the role of smart PR. I don’t see enough of it yet. Starting but still an exception.

  • http://www.showhomes.com Thomas Scott

    I think you hit on what is most important in your post: being an excellent storyteller. PR has changed and anyone who tells you it hasn’t doesn’t know what they are talking about. Publicity is not what it used to be for a simple reason: Social Media changed the way people relate to a brand. Today, it is all about being trustworthy and worthy of mention and conversation. If you want anyone to talk about your company, you have to tell a story that is going to get people talking. VERY FEW releases from big PR firms hit the mark and I can’t remember when I encountered a really good campaign from an old line and established PR firm. There are lots of stellar innovators out there who understand the shift: higher frequency, sharper storytelling, wider distribution, less personal contact. Getting the conversation going (weather it is via social media or intriguing a reporter to write about you) requires trust. PR folks have zero trust and until they figure out that it is not who you know or have in your rolodex and how great a storyteller you are, they’ll keep shrinking.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Thomas, you’ve raised the point of “trust” that is also key. I had the good luck to build a massive open source community (www.trixbox.com) and learned early that honestly, transparency and talking to the community on their own terms is a ‘must do’ for communities of any kind. This basic truism has bubbled up into being one of the pillars of honest communications in a social web world.

  • http://www.showhomes.com Thomas Scott

    Trust is paramount – I still think there are important shifts to PR that few seem to understand. PR is storytelling, not publicity or corporate messages dripped out. Junk in, junk out. The bar is significantly higher today for the quality of content than it was before and what worked with PR before might not translate today. A good story that maximizes the distribution channels gets amazing traction today and has the power to cut through the fog. Of all the people I work with in the franchise industry, I am amazed at how few PR folks even understand this shift.