The 3 Things PR Professionals Need to Forget

By Laurel | Posted Mar 23, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Internet Marketing, Social Media

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably have a good understanding of our thoughts on the public relations industry — that traditional agencies unwilling to adapt and embrace social media (and not only the tools, but the generally accepted tactics as well) will not survive… or at least thrive… in our increasingly connected, online world.  

However, we also believe that PR professionals are in a unique position to thrive as businesses continue to build presence online.  As trained copywriters and masters of communication, by embracing the rules of inbound marketing, and adapting our practices from the stodgy days of spin, we can really help our clients connect with their customers on a level never before possible.

This should be exciting.

Instead, I was reminded today that there is a lot of un-learning that needs to be done before PR firms can really adapt into social media-savvy agencies.

Some firms just don’t get it

I saw an article today by ZDNet blogger Jennifer Leggio regarding the Social PR Research Report she recently released.  The report analyzed data that Leggio collected from more than 600 respondents of a survey asking professionals about their work with PR firms.

Titled, "PR agencies: There’s been a terrible miscommunication," the article states that several agencies mentioned in the report spun the report's messaging, and started making false claims that ZDNET “named us a top ten PR agency for social media” or that “more companies are switching to us versus other agencies, according to ZDNet.”  (These come from the report stating that 10 agencies were mentioned most frequently by survey respondents, and six were named as “viable considerations for clients considering an agency switch.”)

Leggio uses the article to dispute these claims, saying that A) these claims are not what she wrote, B) the survey was not scientific, but meant to be informative, and C) neither she nor ZDNet endorsed any agency in the report.

Is anyone else seeing the irony here?  These PR firms are breaking the rules of social media while trying to claim their expertise.

Maybe I’m just lucky to be a young professional, and learning the New Rules along with the old ones.    Maybe people who’ve been in the industry longer have to let go of tactics and strategies that have worked for them, successfully, for years.

So… what do PR professionals (and agencies) need to un-learn in order to make it online?

1.    Spin.  I feel like I say this in just about every blog post I write, but the old PR habits of tweaking quotes and spinning external messages do not work online.  The person being (mis)quoted will find out if they are even remotely online savvy.  Most likely, they will call you out.  (And not all as nicely as Ms. Leggio.)

2.     Spam.  As my colleague Christina outlined so well in her post on Despamming Publicity Campaigns, “Strong communications and relationships… are at the core of every successful publicity campaign.  It’s not about the numbers… it’s about the quality of the connections you create.” 

Tailor your messages. This applies not only for the media, but for customers as well.  No one likes being shouted to, but just about everyone loves being listened to.  Read articles and blog posts from target media contacts, find your customers online and listen to them.  Only then you can do the talking.

3.    Control.  Gone are the days when every message about your (or your client’s) organization is carefully crafted, revised and perfected before reaching the mass market.  Any customer, employee or stakeholder that has a bad experience now has countless venues to trash your brand. 

As every marketer knows, a happy customer will tell one person, but an unhappy customer will tell 10.  Online, that 10 can turn into tens of thousands.  (It’s worth noting, though, that it’s easy to spread the good word online, too, but only when a brand experience is truly great.) So while you can’t control all the messages about your brand online, you can at least influence them — I’d start by sticking with the two rules above.

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