PR 20/20 Blog

Social and Traditional Media Team up at Cleveland Presidential Debate

By Laurel | Posted Feb 28, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Public Relations, Social Media
As a PR professional, I tend to hear and read a lot about the battle of traditional media vs. social media. Agencies and individuals are constantly re-evaluating where to focus their efforts – should a release be sent out to targeted media contacts, or optimized for search engines and distributed to online newsrooms?

Last night during the democratic presidential primary debate, we had an opportunity to see what, in my opinion, is the more realistic example – that our work with media isn’t either/or, but must combine both old and new. Social media and traditional media are influencing each other, and working together, to create a rich pool of information that people can access, and participate in, as much or as little as they desire.

Not only were news reporters from traditional outlets on hand for the debate at Cleveland State University, so were members of the Cleveland blogging community. The Cleveland Plain Dealer also had some of their own journalists blogging live from the event.

Local NBC-affiliate, WKYC, had correspondents speaking with professionals in the spin room immediately following the debate, as would be expected. But they also went in to chat with the live bloggers, who were able to provide real-time insight into what the general public thought about each candidate’s performance.

Smart, forward-thinking PR professionals across the board are (rightfully) stressing the importance of social media in today’s world for successful PR campaigns. This new outlet is fun and exciting, but must be viewed as a complement to the tried and tested services PR firms have been offering for years – not a replacement.

It’s becoming quite apparent that the traditional media outlets aren’t going away, they’re just adapting to new technology, and evolving with the Web 2.0 world.
Survey Says . . . Mainstream Media Increasingly Turns to Blogs

By Paul | Posted Jan 8, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Social Media
Blogs have given individuals and organizations the power to contribute content online and reach audiences on a grand scale, and according to a recent study from communications firm Brodeur, mainstream media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.) is taking note.

“A survey of U.S. journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC), suggests that blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news, but also influence the tone and editorial direction of reporting.”

Brodeur’s head of strategic planning, Jerry Johnson, revealed the survey results yesterday during a seminar at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Key Findings:

Blogs are sources.
- More than 75% of journalists surveyed use blogs to find new story ideas or angles, and to better understand the context and tone of issues.
Journalists read blogs on a regular basis.
- More than 20% spend at least one hour per day reading blogs.
- More than 50% read blogs at least 2-3 times per week.
Journalists are becoming more active participants in social media.
- More than 25% of respondents have a blog.
- More than 15% have a social networking page.
Are you a thought-leader, innovator or expert? Then in this Web 2.0 world, you better have a blog!
Is Social Media More Relevant Than Mainstream Media?

By Paul | Posted Dec 30, 2007 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Technology
Mainstream media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.) continues to play an essential role in every PR campaign; however, social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, Mashable and Del.icio.us are becoming more relevant and rapidly changing the way people consume news.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)recently released an intriguing report - "The Latest News Headlines - Your Vote Counts" - comparing the news agenda of the mainstream media for one week with the news agenda found on a host of user-news sites for the same period.

Here are a few of the key findings:
- The news agenda of the three user-sites that week was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected did not appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied.
- The sources news sites draw on are strikingly different from the mainstream media. Seven in ten stories on the user sites come either from blogs or Web sites such as YouTube and WebMD that do not focus mostly on news.
- The user-news agenda, at least in this one-week snapshot, was more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory than that of the mainstream news media.
The report goes on to conclude that, "For now, the percentage of Americans who rely exclusively on news from user-driven sites is just a fraction of what it is for mainstream news sites. And in this increasingly fragmented era, many who visit Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit may also be reading the online versions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal."

"But whether or not we see further divergence between user-driven sites and mainstream media over the next few years will surely remain a key question for researches, journalists, and of course, citizens."

While the debate continues, one thing is for sure - the PR industry is evolving, and traditional agencies that don't quickly adapt to integrate social media will be left behind.

See what The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the PEJ report:

User-news sites offer diverse stories, some questionable source
The San Francisco Chronicle
By Joe Garofoli - Sept. 12, 2007

. . . The traditional news outlet wants to put a lot of gravitas on their front page. They want the readers to eat their spinach," said Kourosh Karimkhany, general manager of Wired Digital, which owns Reddit. Technology allows users to create their own news "agenda" from multiple online sources, rendering a traditional front page increasingly "irrelevant," he said.

Instead, on these growing sites - Digg welcomed 19.5 million unique visitors last month - consumers rely on the "wisdom of crowds" (other readers) to figure out what are the top stories of the day.

The study found that the news items on these sites are "more diverse, more transitory and often draw on a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources." It found that 40 percent of the stories on user-news sites originated on blogs and 24 percent came from mainstream sites like BBC News. Only 5 percent came from wire services. . . .