Re-purposing public relations

Innovate or expire. For many PR professionals and communication agencies, there’s a frantic need to innovate to continue thriving, and stay relevant and spirited. Companies are impelling their external PR partners and internal operations to become accustomed with new media and social technologies to remain discernable to their clienteles.  Consumer movements in discovering information, consuming them and sharing them have altered the hubs of power and authority from traditional PR media outlets to a combination of offline and online communicators, bloggers, website owners and social media-savvy publishers.

PR, marketing and advertising are bonded practices. They work best in synergy. They have surfaced to create mass-market appeals using conventional protocols to reach defined targets. And when you scrutinize the basic connotation of the words “public” and “relations,” what emerges is the principle of  “people connecting with knowledge of something or someone.”

Historically companies have adopted PR tactics to manage PR for their own benefit. However, the purposes have gone from corporate goals to individual goals. People, inside or outside of your organization, are now empowered to influence your relationships with your publics because they have been given a booming “voice,” since the signal is not only coming from one but from a multitude. People now connect with other people to learn new data about things companies do, sell and say. If a company implements things that aren’t socially acceptable, traditional PR practices cannot drown the noise of “people connected and equipped with the knowledge” of what the corporation has completed or intends to complete.

The book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR by Brian Solis, a foremost thought leader behind the emerging dynamics in PR, and Deirdre Breakenridge, a leading creative PR mind, wrote that companies need to change their entire marketing, advertising and PR ecosystem in the firm belief that the foundation of any company rests with what people know. “Individual knowledge about anything is now everyone’s knowledge about everything. Soon everyone’s ‘knowledge’ will become easier to find and use,” the authors state.  And that will impact on PR since the company’s intentions can no longer be concealed behind a facade. Here are some of the more intriguing ideas and key takeaways that are shareable:

PR is about dialogue, not monologue. The practice is rapidly changing, and the book outlines some of the key issues facing today’s PR professionals and brings some sense of why traditional PR tactics simply aren’t as effective as you operate in a wired environment. Instead of information mouthpieces, PR practitioners need to be an element in the narrative and the banter. The authors underscored the significance of not totally dumping long-established practices and tools, as you accept and embrace social media as the future of PR. University lecturers handling basic courses should not worry as Solis and Breakenridge continue to stress the importance of an appreciation of the beginnings of PR.

Humanizing your intent and story. That includes learning how, where, and why you must participate in the conversations. By doing so, you reset the dynamic for engagement from top-down to one-on-one interaction. It’s critical that you understand that PR is no longer rooted in broadcast methodologies and the single-focused, key messages that drive them. PR needs to follow the reliable exchange, where it takes place. You have to answer questions, clarify confusions, defend the brand, or develop relationships for the long term.

Understanding the new world of social and digital PR begins by having a grip on the language. This entails dropping old-fashioned terms like “users,” “audience” and “messages.”  What you’re trying to reach with information and stories are your customers, and not generics like “users.” You attack the marketing challenge more as a consumer and less like a “PR person” to demonstrate your investment in information, your deep compassion for customer needs and your clear understanding of what’s valuable. PR people should invest in learning and using new tools, where the highlight is on listening, reading, learning, and understanding the intricacies of the customer. “There is no one tool, one release, or one story that will motivate your customers to take action. It all starts with becoming the person you’re trying to reach and then reverse-engineering the process,” the authors declared.

Social media is not about the technology, it’s about the people.  Social tools can be awe-inspiring, so it’s critical to keep in mind that tools will change, but the substance of engaging with people will always be an imperative.  Implementing conventional marketing tactics and messages with social tools does not lead to engagement. PR specialists must set their sights on the sociology of Internet communities more than their need to distribute data. Involvement with social networks like Facebook and micro-media such as Twitter and helping those platforms to reach your PR objectives is more about communicating with people, not at them. The authors averred, “Social media is changing the PR outreach paradigm from pitching to personalize and genuine engagement.”

The future for PR is about community.  The role of community relations is essential in an online PR strategy.  You must participate in communities and share your brand and product stories, listen to customers and gain valuable insights from your efforts, as well as new communications opportunities.  The focus is on the incorporation of social media within the PR practice. Solis and Breakenridge noted, “Putting the public back into public relations is humanizing the entire process of communication and service — not just keeping customers happy, but also cultivating loyalty and engendering enthusiasts along the way.” To ignore the people making the rants and raves is to ignore some of the very voices that make up a community. They added, “When enough individual voices pool together, the whisper becomes a roar — transforming micro-media into macro influence.”

To move forward, you must take on the changes in practice. The convergence of offline and online approaches emphasizes the PR industry’s need to embrace the changes brought on by the social web and incorporate expertise from other disciplines such as web marketing, web analytics, viral marketing, customer service, social tools, focus groups and crowd sourcing, cultural anthropology and market analysis. “The shift from passive and reactive PR to proactive, hands-on, participatory engagement absolutely requires you to embody everything you represent,” the writers opined. This declaration highlights the rule that to step up in the practice you must adapt and adopt in order to build meaningful relationships with target publics.

Survival of the fittest. The authors declare, “Social media is forcing changes that should have happened a long time ago in everything related to business. Whether or not you jump on board, these changes will continue to occur. And, to be honest, not every current PR professional will survive the transition: The fittest and those most willing and able to adapt will be the survivors.” In fact, you see every division of every business finding itself embracing social strategies. What will be telling is whether or not communicators will embrace the conversations with, for, and by people as opposed to focusing just on the tools themselves.

The tome not so subtly implied that you should stop being just a “publicist” or a mere “communicator” and become what your clients or company really require: an indisputable fan and evangelist for the product you stand for. PR work is by no means going away. Traditional strategy and tactics simply aren’t as effective anymore. You have to re-purpose PR by adapting to and utilizing online strategy in concert with offline strategy to make things work better.

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