PR, Blogging, and the New PR Meme
Posted by Administrator on September 21st, 2005
Or, anyone can do PR - all you need is a blog
By Jeremy Pepper, POP! Public Relations | Musings from POP! PR
EDITORS’ CHOICE | Tools & Trends
More than a year ago, the first Global PR Blog Week took place, with PR bloggers from around the world participating in pushing the world of public relations into the next stage, where blogs and wikis would become standard operating procedures for public relations firms. Now that a year has passed, that is happening. But, unfortunately, at the same time something else has happened: the PR is Dead / the New PR meme.
But, the PR is Dead meme is just that - a meme. Last year, for the first Global PR Blog Week, I interviewed various pundits in the industry, including Richard Edelman and Jack O’Dwyer to get their views on the changing of PR, and what was happening in the industry. From that humble beginning sprang the PR Face2Face interviews, where I usually ask the de rigueur question on blogs and PR.
Just cherry-picking from the interviews, the irony of the New PR is that it’s not anything new, it’s just the industry adapting to new forms of communications - which is something that our industry has always been able to do. PR firms out there do get it, there is an understanding of blogs, and an understanding that PR needs to be involved with blogs - whether tracking, pitching or blogging.
This [Blogging] is a huge, huge new way of communicating. The power of the self-publisher is a little scary. It changes the dynamics of media relations and magazine publishing entirely.
There will be new influencers that PR people will need to learn how to reach. And we have to be thoughtful of what we are saying, and how it will be interpreted by others. Being a good blogger is a big responsibility.
Clive Armitage
It’s difficult to control and use - in PR, we are typically a gatekeeper for information. With blogs and the impact of the Internet, transparency is king. Clearly, the blog is impacting the ways we do our job and new practices are emerging.
Harris Diamond
We [Weber Shandwick Worldwide] do work, and have worked with clients, on how to address issues within the blogs. We have education campaigns, and now have RSS feeds on all our clients, on all the data we put out for our agency and our clients.
Jerry Swerling
Blogs are having a profound impact and effect in PR, from a full variety of standpoints. It is like what you are doing with the Musings from POP! PR blog - you are an important voice in the industry, and the more voices the better.
Communications should be two-way in nature, and that’s what blogs are doing. With more voices in the profession, there are more resources, and more participation.
The impact blogs are having on strategy development? All of these corporate crises, organizational challenges, journalist challenges, these pose a new challenge to the industry, and you have to factor blogs into the strategy.
Jeffrey Sharlach
Blogging will be more of a factor moving forward. Right now, it’s just not a big factor in Latin America, because there are not a lot of home computers. But certainly it’s something that all PR people need to pay attention to.
Howard Rubenstein
They [Blogs] have proven to be very successful as a form of communications.
Ronn Torrosian
It’s [Blogging is] an increasingly important form of communications that we are actively going to get involved with in the coming days, weeks, and months. But, that is not enough.
The fact is, I have seen the enemy, and he is us.
Continuing from a post from late August, the PR is Dead meme is annoyingly funny. The fact is that every movement needs an adversary. As we know from PR campaigns, to make a good story, you need an adversary to vanquish.
Right now, that adversary is public relations, and the so-called saviors are blog consultants. Once again, a blog consultant has called for “PR being dead”, this time at Blog Business Summit. Hmm, wonder what is going to replace PR? Could it be … blogs? Blog consultants sure hope so, and by using this meme they are able to push their agenda.
For some reason, there seems to be a large group of bloggers that think they know what PR is, and that they can lecture PR professionals. They think they know what PR is, or should be, with the “new PR” meme, but happen to be Web producers or engineers or this or that. Just because you have done a few interviews does not make you a PR person. Would a PR person have the audacity to go and lecture the QA engineers, the Web engineers, the coding for candy group on how to do their jobs? No, but that apparently does not work both ways.
Yes, PR needs to know, understand and use blogs. But, hey, we needed to know, understand and use online media when it first arrived, email when it first came on the scene, cell phones … blogs are another communications tool, not the coming of the Messiah. And, PR firms and professionals are advancing and understanding the shift in PR. There are more than 300 PR bloggers, we are in the midst of the second Global PR Blog Week, and PR Blogs has launched, offering a PRblogs.org domain for any PR practitioner or student that would like one.
With the PR is Dead meme, most of these proponents would most likely mislabel PR as a marketing function - solely. And, it isn’t. There is so much more, and that can be seen with the above interviews, by reading one of the few 300+ PR blogs out there. Or how about talking to a PR professional before screaming that PR is dead?
There are problems in public relations right now, which are contributing to this PR is Dead meme: a lack of oversight and understanding at larger agencies. During the dot-com era there was too much title inflation, and there’s been no real correction. Why does PR not get it? Because the senior people that have VP and SVP and EVP and GM titles don’t get it. They are in above their heads, don’t have strategic or tactical skills, and are too afraid to push back against the client or provide guidance to junior staff.
Until we correct that, the PR is Dead meme will continue. We need to clean house, take back PR from self-professed industry spokespeople that don’t care about PR, but only themselves, and push the industry forward.
There are a few reasons, though, why PR is not dying, and why blogs are not an end-all, be-all for PR. First, a good portion of PR is being done on a local or regional level. PR is being done in ways that if all these new tactics were used exclusively - which is what is being suggested/demanded - the local PR practitioner would miss his/her core target audiences. While blogs have their place, not every PR is technology PR and not everyone is going to be reached by a blog.
And the profession of choice for journalism students right now is public relations, because students view public relations as leading the push in transparency and ethics.
So, PR is Dead … but a hot industry to enter for journalism students. Pretty interesting, and something that gives one to pause and think. Maybe PR needs to take the pulse again, and disregard the calls for a funeral.
About the author
Jeremy Pepper is the founder of POP! Public Relations, bringing a decade of experience in consumer technology and Internet to a new adventure. Having blogged for more than 2 1/2 years - Musings from POP! PR - Pepper writes commentary on the public relations industry. The blog was named one of the three most influential PR blogs in an Edelman/Intelliseek White Paper. Pepper also writes the PR Blog on AllBusiness.com with advice for small business owners. Another blog, to be determined later, may or may not be launched soon as a vlog or podcast.
{tags: prblogweek, pr, public+relations, pr+is+dead, new+pr, newpr}
September 21st, 2005 at 8:02 pm
[…] Interesting event and discussion on how PR created through blogs is changing the face of marketing/PR on a massive scale. Will The irony of this ‘New PR’ is that it’s not anything new; it’s just recently become the industry’s quickest adapting tool of communications and people are embracing blogging for PR very rapidly. One excerpt from the GlobalPRblogweek site suggests: There are problems in public relations right now, which are contributing to this PR is Dead meme: a lack of oversight and understanding at larger agencies. During the dot-com era there was too much title inflation, and there’s been no real correction. Why does PR not get it? Because the senior people that have VP and SVP and EVP and GM titles don’t get it. They are in above their heads, don’t have strategic or tactical skills, and are too afraid to push back against the client or provide guidance to junior staff. […]
September 21st, 2005 at 10:26 pm
So, PR is Dead … but a hot industry to enter for journalism students.
Excellent point, and one that had passed me by.
Long live PR!
September 22nd, 2005 at 12:38 am
Thanks. I guess PR is still alive enough for people to want to participate in a PR Blog initiative….
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:26 am
Jeremy,
You will probably call me naive and various other things, but I really don’t understand why so many people fear blogs. Granted I just graduated from college (Auburn) and we did a lot with blogs, so I guess I’m used to it. I think on some level it’s the problem of what people don’t understand they fear, but I really thought that blogging would be somthing that PR people would jump at b/c it is a wonderful form way of getting feedback from a target audience…and other people as well. Anyway, I would appreciate some enlightenment, and others are welcome to offer their opinion as well.
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:41 am
Talk about being buried alive!
No, PR is not dead. If anything, bad PR is dead — “bad PR” meaning the practice of bad PR. What I think this “PR is Dead” movement has done is to draw a line in the sand. Separate the strong from the weak — essentially, those that will evolve and embrace this new communication tool from those who will continue with what they were probably doing anyway (not much).
And you know, bad PR isn’t even dead. It will continue for a while, but it will become less and less acceptable as clients expect more and more from their public relations programs.
Now, smart PR definitely is not dead. Never will be. There’s just too many things a well-rounded PR strategy created by a savvy PR professional has to offer that a blog could never even hope to accomplish. (Like reaching local and regional target publics, as you mentioned, Jeremy.)
Blogs are important, just as all other communications tools are important and need to be understood by PR professionals. But they’re a far cry from the one and only NEW PR. Basically, blogs are like a hammer: a really handy tool, but not the whole toolbox.
September 22nd, 2005 at 5:18 am
Allow me to make a addendum to my last post. After reading more in-depthly several of the articles in Jeremy’s initial post, I understand the idea of PR being dead, in the sense of writing press realeases and such. To me, while I know this is an integral part of PR and many people make their living doing this, I never really considered it to be PR alone. For a company to use its PR department to do nothing but press releases, is not profitable and IMHO not at all what PR people need to be spending their talents doing. I hope this form of PR is dead, so that PR can grow and be recognized more and more as an integral part of any successful business.
While attending a PRSA conference last year in Birmingham, AL one of the professionals in the room asked the keynote speaker about blogs. The speaker replied with, “Who here has a blog”. Only the students in the room raised their hands. The look of surprise and confusion on the faces of the professionals was amusing. Most of them in the room, didn’t understand blogs at that time and in a sense, I think they were scared of the changes that the blog and the blogesphere could have on their world. This is what I was referring to in my previous post when I was talking about “fear”. Sorry for confussion.
September 22nd, 2005 at 5:25 am
Nah, Justin - I’ll just blame Robert
I am not sure if there is a fear of blogs themselves, but there is always a fear of the unknown or the uncontrollable. That’s just human nature.
I’m part of the camp that views blogs as another tool in PR. They are great tools, but should not be a replacement for traditional outreach, but a complementary tool. But, it is too early in blogging to see where it will all eventually fall out. I have seen blogs that have been launched for companies that are great implementations, and other blogs that just seem like the PR team had no clue what to do, and thought “let’s launch a blog” - and it does nothing for the brand.
Yes, blogs are important, but it’s just as important to be smart about them.
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:07 am
Erin, the hammer/toolbox analogy is great. Bad PR will always be around, because the barrier to entry is just a telephone and a computer (well, that’s the perceived barrier to entry). That was the reason for my sarcastic subhed: anyone can do PR, didn’t you know that??
Good PR looks at everything available, sees which tools fit best, and then moves forward.
September 22nd, 2005 at 12:52 pm
Jeremy,
Haha … oh, I got your sarcasm! And I think it also can apply to the naive assumptions of those non-PR folks that try to lecture PR professionals and even go as far as to declare PR dead. So yes, good subhead — succintly conveys the absurdity of the idea.
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:07 pm
I’m sure Robert would be sitting there shaking his head at my first post.
Erin’s analogy hit the nail on the head (sorry couldn’t resist) as to what a blog should be, one of many tools that we have to assist us to get our message out.
So, what do you see as the next new tool coming down the pipe. I’ve learned that all of this stuff moves pretty quick, so I think I’d like to get a jump on the next big thing.
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Ok, Justin, that’s the hard question but my guesses are that the next thing in PR and technology are pitching podcasts and product placement / sponsorship in vlogs. But, in reality that is just another extension of consumer generated media.
The next great thing is always hard to peg - who would have thought that blogging would take off to the extent that it has? Blogs are beginning to have influence with the mainstream, general public, which is helping their growth.
I’m still hoping that the inventions on the Jetsons finally arrive.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:17 pm
I think one should distinguish between blog consultancies and blog consultants with an agency/consultany. The first will promise a lot with a blog and the latter, as Erin pointed out, is part of a whole that seeks the best solution for a customer. And if blogs are not part of a solution for a certain customer then the blog consultant in the team can take a cigarette break. Or have more areas of expertise to begin with
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:49 am
Heck yeah…weren’t the jetsons supposed to be living in 2010? We’ve got a long way to go before the joys of robot housmaids and a car that folds into a briefcase.
It seems to me, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The advances in technology only add to the toolbox that we have to enhance the fundamentals of good PR. Like you said about product placing; I remember reading something taht said companies paid millions of dollars to have their products placed on an episode of “Friends”. In the future, instead of T.V. shows it maybe Podcasts, but the principle is still the same.
I didn’t even know about vlogs until you mentioned them. That is an interesting…and very logical concept (as the next step from blogs). I’m guessing that companies could put ads and news conferences on their vlogs for people to view and give feedback on. LIke I said, this stuff is ever evolving and changing…it’s tough to keep up.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:09 pm
So, it seem, it is time for PR to reach for the sky and learn about the wider area of interest beyond agentry. Agentry still has a place and can be useful when looking for blog flack to add content. Not a good idea but will it will happen in the blogsphere but the technology and activist threaten. Just today the news is a warning for armature who attempts to just jump in. Mobile communication got and new toy this week. Evidence suggests that beaming TV to mobile devices can be a mass market service. Meantime, experts have found a Trojan horse worm which can jump from a mobile phone to a PC. If that was not enough, a new handbook is showing bloggers and cyber dissidents around the world how to circumvent censorship and disclosure laws. Online PR just became even more interesting.