Columnistastic

PR Week gave me a column this week. No bribes involved, just an offer of a column. How nice, I thought, so got scibbling away. Here's what I said. Please let me know if you like. (ignore the old photo they used, I look v v old now compared).

Learn digital skills – or risk losing out to other disciplines

Drew Benvie 14-Feb-08

PROs should be creating online content and building applications in an effort to protect their territory, says Hotwire director Drew Benvie.

Digital and ­social media specialists in the industry have been talking recently of an elephant in the room. That is the notion that advertising, design and digital agencies are encroaching on PR turf and could potentially steal our work, flatten our revenues and take our budgets.

However, this battle is about much more than who gets what budget. It represents a fundamental shift in the kind of work we are able to do for our clients.

There has always been ­negotiation with our clients and battles with other PR firms and, of course, against other marketing investments. At events I have attended ­recently and in subsequent discussions played out on soapbox blogs, I have seen fellow professionals acting out of character, perhaps a little concerned about the new competitive force entering our room.

But I am seeing an entirely different room - and it is PR professionals that are the elephants.
Since the web began as an outlet for journalism, the ­industry has looked to specialise in getting brands covered in that medium.

The web has bred specialist PROs who create tailored campaigns and can also work independently of journalists, such as virally or through word of mouth. And so it follows that in recent years, with the ­advent of the social web and citizen media, PR has evolved further still.

We have an opportunity to develop the right skills in cutting-edge areas of digital comms around web 2.0, ­social media and word-of-mouth PR campaigns. These are not simply PR plans, budgets and concepts at play, but marketing too. It will help to broaden the industry's ­horizons and get PR a few more seats at the top table. 

So now the grey area emerges between PR and digital media production. Some of us will learn these new skills ourselves. Some will buy in that expertise. But we are now seeing PR practitioners who cannot (and will never need to) write a feature for a magazine, or don't know which journalist to call at a newspaper for placing a story.

But they can create digital content, build applications and make virals that are core to PR campaigns from strategy through to execution.

Such campaigns will be global and pervasive, not ­regional or by sector. They will be barely recognisable as PR to the traditionalists.

The blurred edges bet­ween digital media PR and other marketing disciplines will create new levels of healthy competition in our industry and theirs.

Drew Benvie is a director at Hotwire. He writes Drew B's Take on Tech PR (theblogconsultancy.typepad.com)

Comments

[Tim Callington]

I think there's a great deal of truth in what you're saying. The consistent theme is, and will continue to be, our ability to tell stories. We'll always need to weave entertaining, engaging, informative narratives, regardless of the medium and excel at doing it.

[Niall Cowley]

Drew,

Insightful article and completely true.

I constantly have this conversation with my PRO colleagues who are utterly convinced that PR has seen its day. I couldn't disagree more.
To say that clients, when looking to create video led digital content for social media campaigns, will look to their advertising and marketing agencies is to overlook the key differences between PR and advertising.

It is not the ability to create compelling video and digital content that separates PR & advertising, or else broadcast PR providers like Medialink would not be flourishing. The difference is paid-for media space versus editorial influence. We PROs will continue to have the edge over our above the line cousins because we have always created content that is designed to influence the opinions of influencers. In the new PR service delivery model, this process remains intact, it is the way in which we deliver this content that we PROs need to review.

I continue to be surprised that only tech PROs are so informed about how we need to adapt to social media, yet consumer PR hasn't really caught on in the same way. Last time I was on Facebook, I saw 64 million consumers.

[Daryl Willcox]

Spot-on Drew. The PR community is in such a fantastic position to establish itself at the centre of digital marketing. But to do that PR professionals need to open to the opportunities and start learning to fill the skill gaps.

[Lucie Follett]

Interesting article, Drew.

I would also suggest that it is not just about the ability to CREATE content....but also specifically, the means to track and quantify its performance in relation to the end commercial goal (*which has to be the point!)

Speaking as someone who works in search engine marketing and web analytics, I must admit to being shocked on an ongoing basis at just how few companies which have an online presence, whether ecommerce or brand awareness, have absolutely no ability to track how/where their visitors are coming from, why they are there and why, perhaps, they are not doing what it is hoped that they will do (buy!)

So, you create some funky schmunky facebook application or use other social media / blog advertising ...but unless you have a system in place to quantify exactly what kind of ROI that is bringing you - it is wasted £ !

Personally, I think a really robust,ideal method is a combination of all 3 - proactive pr + proactive search engine marketing with an emphasis on competitor analysis + web analytics to quantify and track the performance of both the above.