What’s Wrong With PR?
July 16th, 2008 | Posted by Ryan La Rosa
Hey, there. I’m Ryan La Rosa, the new Convergent Media Public Relations Specialist at Park&Co, and I hate PR.
Wait, I know what you’re thinking. But yeah, I hate PR. Maybe not as deeply as I hate a certain East Coast baseball team that “proudly” — arrogantly — refer to themselves as “The Nation,” but it’s still pretty deep.
What bothers me the most about PR is its practitioners’ inherent fallback on old practices and a lack of creativity. Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the title. Public Relations means that we try to find the most effective means of reaching the public. If that’s the case, then why do we as an industry continue to rely on outdated practices that in our gut we know aren’t working? Simply put, it’s easy.
The ultimate crime is that the majority of our clients don’t know the true nature and capabilities of PR. They walk in the door asking for press releases and major headlines, and instead of educating them as to why that’s not the only or even the most effective means, we just nod our heads like mindless drones. As a PR professional I’m guilty of it, and I think if we took some time to do a little soul searching we’d all admit we’ve done the same.
That’s not to say there isn’t some amazing work being done out there. I’m also not saying media relations aren’t important. They’re very important. But media relations are simply cogs in the overall PR wheel. Newspaper readership is dwindling, the Internet has become an advertising landfill, and consumers have lost trust in “editorial” messaging. For all of these reasons, consumers are relying on each other for information, now more than ever. As audiences around us get smarter, they filter out expensive “strategic marketing messages.” It’s PR’s job to start making the messages more organic.
Let’s start conversations! Isn’t it obvious? A newspaper article about your new restaurant won’t likely be seen by a majority of your audience, and if they do see it, the endorsement doesn’t carry nearly the same weight as it might have in the past. Now, what if a trusted friend came up to you and suggested you try the same restaurant. Maybe they blogged about it, texted you about it, or better yet, forwarded you the article that ran in the paper. Now you’re talking! Literally, you’re talking. That’s a trusted source. That’s a sincere endorsement. That’s public relations.
Well that’s all well and good, but you’re probably asking yourself “How we do it?” That’s where the “convergent media” part of my title comes in. It means that I’m going to do my best to connect clients with their audiences directly. I’ll use tactics like word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing, and social networking, in conjunction with tried and true methods. The bottom line is it’s time to stop being safe. It is my pledge to start doing justice to the title of our beloved practice — public relations. Who’s with me?
July 17th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Ryan,
I like how you think. It’s time for the practice of PR to be “updated.” I think social netoworking is exactly the place to start, this isnt your grandmothers internet… it’s ours.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hey Ryan - congrats. Park knows I am a huge fan of your team. If I had one amendment to make to your statement it would be that many unaccredited practitioners don’t get it. Those of us with our APR do. We’re up-to-date on the latest of web 2.0, and the trends that tell us to confront convention and seek alternative, creative and more personalized ways to reach our communities. Those of us that are APR know this, and have happily extracted the word “audience” from our lexicon, as we have discovered with web 2.0, audiences don’t exist anymore. Thank you for your bold statement. I am with you.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Well said, my friend. You hit the nail on the head when you say that in this day-and-age any tactic absent a conversation is not really worth doing — whether that’s a press release to start a conversation with news media or a cool one-to-one marketing experience and everything in between.
I’m having a bad-publicists-spam-the-blogger week so bear with me, but I’m learning that many so-called PR pratitioners can’t even start a conversation by email these days, nor are they even thoughtful enough to read the publications in which they send their announcements in order to gather the info to start that conversation.
This is a huge turnoff and in a 24-7 connectivity atmosphere — and as you hint, that’s certain brand death. The increasing levels to which this is ignored these days by both clients and PR people is both rampant and incomprehensible.
Oh yeah, I’m with you. Great post - hope you’ll do more…
December 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
The conversation part is pretty important. I’m not exactly excited about viral marketing, word of mouth and social networks. People can be misled in any medium.
The company that has no problems with misleading is the same company that won’t listen to the other party in the conversation, but will keep the conversation going to appear down to earth.
It’s another set of gimmicks when the business model doesn’t change. The only way to have a true conversation is to have consumers run the company and I haven’t seen a model for that.
We can’t even run governments where people participate consistently. It’s not user friendly.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:29 am
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