Fast forward

Over the last couple of days I have read a couple of posts that seem to pinpoint important changes that should influence PR practice.

Journalist Charles Arthur posted to say he would no longer be reading news releases because it was more productive to rely on word of mouth and blogs.

John Cass commented on Mediations that he thought in certain sectors at least CEO should write their own blogs because they are the experts

And now Shel Israel is suggesting that start ups would be better to direct resources towards blogs rather than traditional PR: "I have begun to question whether traditional Command and Control PR is a benefit... I have become convinced that having a PR agency at launch is not only unnecessary, it can be a mistake."

Is there something significant happening here? Before answering, it is worth mentioning what I have so far missed out - all three were talking about publicising hi-tech/ Web 2.0 start-ups. The common factor is that they are discussing strategies to reach a relatively limited number of well-informed journalists/ commentators.

The question is, are the needs, working practice and conversational environment surrounding hi-tech launches sufficiently different from those of other organisations for us to regard them as a discreet sub-sector of PR or are we seeing the beginnings of a change?   

Here are a few points from Shel

• Traditional PR will tell you to keep in stealth mode, then get the word out at an imaginary moment which is the technical launch.  The blogging strategist will tell you to get pieces of your story out early and often and to ask people who care about what you're doing to to help you make it better.
• Traditional PR tries to control message, to get a company to speak with one voice.  Blogging strategy argues that it is more credible and more human to speak with many voices.  These voices may be in harmony, but a little discordance just makes your story all the more interesting.
• Traditional PR pushes messages through media to reach customers, considering both to be "targets." Bloggers have ongoing two-way conversations.  The company talks, but customers talk back.  It's out in the open. 
• PR spends a great deal of effort pro-actively pursuing press. They get others to say you are great by writing up case studies about a few customers, then pitching them to the media or splicing them onto websites. Bloggers assume the best editors will find what customers say about you in the blogosphere by using search engines.  No advertisement, PR campaign or PR pitch can possibly come close to the impact blogging as on search engines. I would argue that a new company with disruptive technology will get more ink, faster, with less effort and money through blogging, than through a PR campaign.
• Traditional PR's philosophy is top-down.  They determine the biggest and most influential in your category, then they target them.  Blogging assumes that good news distributed at the grassroots level will emerge very quickly.  The examples of stories starting with some unknown blogger and getting to the front page of major national publications are manifold.... In fact, the evidence is pretty compelling that the shortest route from obscurity to prominent coverage in traditional media is through blogging.

I think (in early 2006 but for how much longer?) that most of these points are well made... when applied to a fairly tight group of publics, and broadly tied to a focused and committed consumer/ ineterst base. Shel's dialectic would apply convicingly for, say, a music band.

But about a health awareness campaign? Here, having a special 'XXXX Day' is a very useful weapon. Conversely, a little discordance around the message that the disease is caused by such and such a factor is not in the least bit helpful.

From Edward Bernays onwards effective PRs have realised that reputation mangement and message building are battle best fought on many fronts and with an array of tactics; it is not a one-size fits all discipline.

Comments

[shel israel]

Philip,
Thanks for the very thoughtful review of my comments. Indeed, I emphasized that I was tsalking about Web 2.0 start ups only. But what the rest of the PR industry should note that this is the front of the comet. What is true for leading edge tech companies today, has a fair probability of being applicable to other segments of it not too far down the line. I think the wise course is to start learning about blogging now. so that you are in a postion of expertise before--not after--your client finds the need for it.Sart thinking about your next business mdel now--while you current model is still working. At some point n the future, yo may find the need to reinvent yourself fast.

[David Phillips]

There can be no question that conversational relationships is the new direction for Public Relations and it will be (is?) a challenge that Marketing and Advertising are not equipped to manage.

I am suggesting the those two sectors have now had their day (and perhaps should be brought under the wing of PR as Public Relations progresses towards being a relationship management profession).

Your comment that PR uses many techniques when working at its best is right.

Recently, I have been looking at the range channels for communication that have emerged in the last decade or so.

Beside, blogs, wiki's, Podcasts, Videocasts (and RSS?), There is, Play Station and X-Box, chat, SMS, vlogs, Interactive TV and the list goes on (I have some of them at netpr.blogspot.com). Used in combinations they add up to a powerful capability especially when working in combination with the media we used to use. Some of them are now often quite forgotten (the hand written letter now so very powerful).

What is apparent is that PR has to be sensitive to culture and time in offering the right conversations through the right channel at an appropriate time which applies as much to internal persuasion as to external conversation.