Social digital media is changing how we, the PR advisors and practitioners, do business. Blogs, forums, MySpaces and online media are massively impacting company brands. They build brands and they are breaking them. Yet check where your brand is being 'sold' into by your PR team and you can bet that getting Digged, Slashdotted or profiled on Om Malik aren't big priorities, if understood at all. Yet the millions of daily readers at these places have real buying power. So why is there this PR disconnect?
Mike Manuel suggests the PR industry has a talent black hole. Steve Rubel tells his readers he does what he does to keep ahead of the game. There is no shortage of new ideas hitting the PR industry, but bloggers in the media are telling me there is a huge shortage of PRs that get blogging and social media. This might just be a UK thing but I'm seeing most of the industry in catch-up mode.
For how long were newspapers around before PR emerged to influence what they covered?
Blogging and the social media movement is half-baked at best. Not many people understand it, and the technology is still very much in its infancy. Take Ajax - in my mind it should be the basis of every web page, but it's still only a small component of my daily browsing.
We are at the very start of a revolution in the way public opinion is formed. If anything, PR is ahead of the game.
Posted by: Jon Silk | April 05, 2006 at 11:21 PM
As one PR told me - 'We can't get into blogs because it completely undermines our clients need for control.' Wrong thinking.
Posted by: Dennis Howlett | April 06, 2006 at 06:31 AM
I agree, but in my limited experience PR consultants take the lead from their clients.
So if the clients ain't asking, they don't realise why they need to get it.
It's up to those of us who do to convince our clients why it's important.
Posted by: Niall Cook | April 06, 2006 at 11:14 AM
Nice photo in PR Week, by the way ;-)
Posted by: Niall Cook | April 06, 2006 at 11:15 AM
Cheers Niall :-)
Posted by: Drew B | April 06, 2006 at 11:41 AM