“PR is dead, and the media is dying.”
It’s baaack!
Apart from the melodrama of these statements, many (non-media or non-PR pros) have been quoted saying public relations, as a practice, is slowly diminishing in its overall value to business functions. Why? They claim the advent of social media has made PR obsolete, that all an organization needs to do is have its CEO tweet, pick a few “influential bloggers” to share their news with and maintain and craft relationships on their own. They also claim that PR agencies haven’t innovated enough – and at times, their criticism of the PR industry has been fair, especially when it come to sloppy practices and an inability to effectively use social media. In short, they say PR is not what it once was in terms of value.
And we respectfully disagree.
First, PR Week is reporting that over the next three years, marketers are going to spend more than $8 billion on public relations – a 55% increase over spending in 2008. Clearly those brands are seeing an increased need for PR services, as the media landscape gets more fragmented and challenging to navigate. Understanding that an industry publication may not be considered the most unbiased source to a doubter, let’s look directly at who is saying we’re “dead” and the alternatives they propose.
Andy Sacks, a blogger in Seattle who writes about entrepreneurship, recently wrote a “PR is dead” post and then offered the following tips:
Make a list of the top 10 influencers you are targeting.
Work backwards from 10 to 1 and start engaging that list in any way you can
By the time you get to #1, you should have your pitch and engagement down so you have the greatest chance of success.
As we pointed out to Mr. Sacks on Twitter, this actually proves that PR is not dead. Who makes the list of influencers? Who conducts the necessary research to identify these people and then create relationships with them? Who crafts the pitch? Your leaders can certainly do some of this lifting but it doesn’t feel strategic or streamlined. Bloggers and media alike are notoriously irritated by being pitched by someone who has not taken the time to familiarize themselves with the topic areas they cover and how they like to be approached. Is this kind of detailed and nuanced research the best use of a CEO’s time? Also, your pitch should be tight well before you get to your #1 identified influencer. Why should influencers 2 through 10 have to suffer through a mediocre attempt? To maximize success and minimize gaffes that can spread through social media like wildfire, you need dedicated and talented publicists to manage this process.
Just because this is “old news”, we do need to address the rumored demise of the press release (and also old news but “PR” doesn’t stand for “press release”). Many claim that releases as a form of media relations are a thing of the past yet we’re finding that journalists often rely on press releases as a valuable resource to help them write their stories. We’re asked all the time if we can supply a release and we recommend most of our clients to issue press releases as a document of record for major announcements. Dedicating an area on a Web site to this is hugely critical for any organization. Let’s be clear – a press release is not the key to a successful PR program, and there is no substitute for knowing how to craft and pitch a compelling story and knowing a journalist’s beat, but having the story and facts in a release remains a piece of the PR pie.
PR is still needed to set, hone, refine, evaluate and broadcast critical messages for an organization, brand or cause. And that, my friends, is why PR is alive and well, still shaping company reputations and contributing to the bottom line.
