Is social media killing PR

An article just up on ZDNet covers a recent event about the social media / death of PR issue. It makes interesting reading, as anyone who works in PR knows social media is bringing change, and the event that the article covers includes a star slot from top industry analyst, Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang. Conclusion - social media exposes a weakness in PR.

Here's some of the article and Jemeriah's good bits from the event: 

During the panel, both [Susan] Etlinger and Owyang handed these issues to the audience on a silver platter. Specifcally, Owyang made the critical points that yes, PR is changing, and it’s more important now than ever that PR engage 1) beyond corporate communications 2) throughout the customer lifecycles and 3) with a new and improved skill set. And, most important, PR needs to fix its own reputation (Owyang expands on this in detail on his blog).

In his own account of how the event went, Jeremiah's blog goes on to look at the opportunities that face PR firms, presented by social media. He says that there are four business opportunities for the evolved PR firm. 

First, enhance existing functions. Look at how to communicate with press, analysts, customers, media, bloggers and so on direct and through one another. If PR doesn't get its head around all these channels and doing it in an evolved way then it will be bypassed. 

Second, differentiation. Jeremiah says that PR people should become part of the community they serve, regardless of the client they're working on and become known as experts in their industry. 

Third, extend the customer lifecycle. PR firms must look beyond media relations and develop a variety of ways of accessing audiences direct for their clients. 

Fourth, fix your own reputation! Jeremiah says PR firms should be using social media more to tell their own stories and also let their clients advocate their people and services more.

 

It's not rocket science and for PR firms already in social media it's a bit of a case of nothing new there. But good to see an independent analyst putting down their thoughts of how the industry as a whole can and should adapt to the opportunities on the table. 

Comments

[Andy]

My God it is early for such deep thinking... and on a Saturday morning as well.

My reckoning (despite not having had a coffee yet so I may be talking more drivvle than usual) is that all too many PR's - maybe me as well in the early stages - only saw social media as another channel by which you can spread client messages.

In reality it is far more than that and it is the PR's who get involved and, as mentioned, become experts in these new sectors, who will fair the best when the Great Social Media Revolution takes place.

"PR people should become part of the community they serve" spot on...

[Will McInnes]

Drew - is it me or is there nothing new in here? Feels very veneery to me. I find Jeremiah good for noise and sheer updatedness, and not so good for deep insights personally.

[Julio Romo]

Drew, all very obvious stuff really. I'm more concerned that some people might find his views ground breaking. They are not.

Social Media is not killing PR. People (PRs) who believe it is the be-all and end-all are the ones that are having a negative effect on PR.

Social Media is a new and very good tool, which PRs are still learning to use.

[Richard Bailey]

But note the observations of Sir Martin Sorrell in a lecture on public relations on 5 November.

'We at WPP canot remember a time when our public relations and public affairs businesses were more vibrant. All our firms are performing better than they have ever done before. That is set to continue.'

First among the factors Sorrell lists to explain this continued growth is social media - 'a natural territory for PR'.

Surely that's the key point. There's a future for PR and a future for social media.

[Drew Benvie]

I agree this isn't such big news to those closer to social media. But with most PR consultants spending the majority of their time on a broad range of comms disciplines, Jeremiah probably hits the right level of depth in his summary.