Social media puts PRs in catch-up mode

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.

Comments

[Simon Collister]

I agree the US is way ahead of the UK in terms of 'New PR'... but we're catching up fast. PR Week's new tech page etc is confirmation of that.

Also, remember the Euroblog results showing most European PROs use blogs to been to be 'ctting edge'! At least this shows attitudes are in the right place.

Thirdly. We have a tech referrer client who was keen on a blog - but went ahead without our input and did it so wrong! Good to see some things don't change!

[Sherrilynne Starkie]

Clients that don't see the importance of the blogosphere have their heads in the sand. It's our job to make them stand up.

[renaissance chambara]

Drew,

This doesn't surprise me at all; there are a number of factors involved:

- Depending on the area of your client the blogosphere discussion is likely to be happening in the US and France rather than a discussion in the UK (I know this is true of the particular web technologies that I promote at the moment)
- Whilst the blogosphere is a global environment, PR agencies are rooted in very real territory boundaries based on fee, the client organisational structure and remit
- Often it is more junior members of the agency that get the new stuff coming through, yet there is a marketing gap between the current graduates and their younger siblings has exasperated the process even further
- Blogs still don't have the golf course factor: when I was an account manager the European MD at one of my clients said to me that he would know that PR was working when coverage in the FT was was brought up to him in conversation by his peers down the golf club

I do think however that traditional media (like The Guardian and BBC news have already done) will assimilate much of the beneficial aspects of the blogosphere and carry their kudos over to make them relevant in this area. Given this, the ability to address 'traditional' media is not dead by a long shot.