PR
Media relations is not social. Or is it?
A big piece of modern public relations is maintaining relationships with members of the media. Journalists, broadcasters, producers, editors, etc.
These relationships are the inside track that allows a PR firm to get a story to the front of the line for consideration. As opposed to waiting or hoping that word of mouth will carry a company or celebrity’s news through the labrinth of today’s news avalanche.
And the reverse is true. These relationships allow media outlets a trusted bullpen of sources of different topics. If they need experts or relevant comment on different sources, part of the playbook is to reach out to public relations professional for these sources.
Ok, enough of the preface. At this point I have basically described a professional networking custom that exist in many industries. In PR and media and journalism though, the result is much more public facing.
As PR transitions to include blogger outreach and beyond bloggers, new media outreach (Youtube stars, Twitter celebrities, etc), the rules are remarkably similar in many ways.
- Find relevant media professionals that can help your client
- Find relevant media professionals that you can help (Bonus if 1 & 2 are the same)
- Build a mutually beneficial relationship
- Nurture relationship
That word relationship is of course what we talk about a lot in social media. It is what we are talking about (or the lack of) when we complain about spam, or bad PR pitches, or brands that do not talk to us online.
In media relations, the behind the scenes social relationships are essential. Relationships are of course at the heart of most of the things we do in life. Giving value. Getting value. Nurturing the delicate tension between the two.
Media relations and new media relations can differ in scale I suppose. Today, some of the bloggers and Twitter users and forum admins we reach out to as marketers have communities that are quite small.
Of course, sometimes these are more relevant or niche than any print or broadcast audience traditional media relations could have ever hoped for. And sometimes, these communities are not so small.
The real difference is only eco-stystem. Learning the ins and outs of how to approach journalists and producers and editors is the learning curve. The skill set, the ability to build useful relationships, is the same. From public relations to social media, those that succeed for their clients in outreach are those that do well at building relationships.
How Not To Pitch Your Book
I got an email this evening that was really disappointing. The email in question is below, a book pitch, for Social Fresh, disguised as an email share from Amazon. Well, disguise is the wrong word. It was an actual Amazon.com email share. I had not heard of the book. I had not heard of the author. I guess I was suppose to read about the book and get so excited about it that I just had to buy a copy or request a copy to review? I really have no clue.
Not only is this incredibly impersonal, for a book on social media no less, but it is about the laziest pitch email I have ever received.
4 Reasons Why PR Agencies Are Taking Over Social Media
PR agencies will inevitably own the social media space for big brands. They simply have the right skill set and the right billing model. They have the ability to buy the social media talent needed. And they have something that other social media agencies do not – bigger, more time tested resources for relationship building and research.
1. PR Does Story Telling
At the most basic of levels, writing and story telling is the heart of public relations. It is important to be able to spin an angle, develop a company’s story in a news worthy format, or simply compose a narrative through press releases and conversations.
2. PR Does Relationship Building
Maintaining connections with journalists is old PR (and still important). Today companies need to maintain relationships with influencers. This is a larger scale. These influencers are more numerous and more varied than their journalist counterparts. There are A, B, and C list bloggers, Twitterati, Youtube Stars and the list goes on. Other marketing segments have a lot to learn in this arena.
3. PR Does Crisis Management
The publicity game works both ways, for better or worse. They are out there to push the good, but even more importantly sometimes is having a team to react quickly when bad press hits. This is even more important within social media, where the bad can spread at a blistering pace. No other segment of the marketing community is built well to deal with this exact situation.
4. PR Has the Right Billing Model
All marketing companies share an hourly billing model, but PR bills for ongoing work, not an end product. PR agencies are prepared for a constant effort to get earned media to the right audience, to book event publicity, to leverage partnerships, to cultivate longer term relationships with stakeholders and media.
What PR agencies do you think are leading the way in taking over social media for big brands?
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