Will public relations inherit (the social media) earth?

Last Friday I gave a talk to a large UK PR agency about social media. I told them they (PR) were (or should be) much better placed to engage people through social media than traditional advertising agencies.

The Wikipedia definition of PR is -

“Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. Public relations – often referred to as PR – gains an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. Because public relations places exposure in credible third-party outlets, it offers a third-party legitimacy that advertising does not have. Common activities include speaking at conferences, working with the press, and employee communication.”

Social media is all about communication. The so-called conversation. Tools like blogs, micro-blogging (like Twitter) LinkedIn, YouTube and social networks are a heaven sent for communicators.

PR people should have an instinctive feel for this brave new world.

Press releases have always attempted to be more ‘content like’. They had to be newsworthy and authentic to make it into the media. To achieve word of mouth the message had to truly interesting. Good communication with a businesses’ “publics” have always been more like talking – a conversation – than shouting (advertising).

Sponsorship – also a PR preserve – can be seen a form of ‘content funding’.

One has to look no further than Barack Obama’s recent election campaign to see how social media can be used for things that look a lot like PR. The NY times enthused:

“But by using interactive Web 2.0 tools, Mr. Obama’s campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents.”

Mind you PR have not done too badly of late. Some of the decline in media spend, away from TV, radio and print has in fact shifted to PR. And PR is often rightly seen as a cheaper way of getting your message out.

Why? As less and less advertising occupies column space in the press, hard pressed editors with less and less staff are looking for easy copy to fill their pages. PR releases have found some fertile soil.

Can PR rest on its laurels? This PR renaissance could be short lived. Without advertising, many magazine titles, papers and even TV channels will cease to exist (at least in their current form) and the available column inches with them.

There are skeptics. During my talk I was either told that the blogs and the like are not as popular in the UK as the US. And the Brits have an enduring love affair with newspapers was another retort.

But just today the Media Guardian reported:

Two of the biggest regional newspaper publishers, Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press, issued interim reports last week detailing how their advertising revenue was crumbling faster than they had expected. They each recorded falls in property advertising of almost 50%, against a general ad slump of over 20% and 15% respectively since the end of June. Trinity Mirror has closed 44 local titles because of the advertising downturn and the switch to the web, where profits are harder to come by.

Dear (of the NUJ) thinks further cuts will damage the industry, and expects more titles to close in the months ahead. “It’s a false economy to make such deep cuts. I think the cuts are already deep but I can see more on the horizon. The warning signs coming out of a number of companies about their ad revenue makes it clear to me that there will be further cuts. The problem a lot of companies are creating for themselves is that, post-recession, many of them will not be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities because they will have lost so many readers and advertisers because of cuts [to staff].”

Dear’s assessment tallies with that of Richards, who thinks the worst could be yet to come for consumer titles in general.”

The closing of local newspapers and many consumer titles will hit PR hard.

In the same Guardian Rupert Murdoch was quoted as saying that journalism will not die. But he added:

“Our real business isn’t printing on dead trees. It’s giving our readers great journalism and great judgment.”

“At a time when new printing technology was making other papers around the world more efficient, newspapers in Britain were forced to rely on a technology that had not changed much since Gutenberg’s Bible. The costs were destroying hundreds of jobs and crippling what is now the world’s most vibrant newspaper market…”

Echoing the impact of social technologies that Li & Bernoff describe so eloquently in their Groundswell book he says:

“Today editors are losing this power. The internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren’t satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself.”

ZuluZulu thinks blogging is the PR tool par excellence.

It is an easy to use, powerful and flexible platform for companies with a complexity problem to conduct their brand PR (PR that shifts products) efforts. It allows a company to speak to customers in the middle of the funnel.

But so to does almost all corporate public relations (PR that builds reputations) benefit from using a blog. (Corporate public relations are almost always complex in nature.)

You can see the whole presentation I gave here: