PR and Social Media: Across the Blogosphere

February 4th, 2010

PR and Social Media: Across the Blogosphere

Posted by: Maddie Grant

I’m Maddie Grant, an association/nonprofit industry blogger on social media and online community building. I’m very happy to have been invited to be a regular poster on K Street Cafe.

This is my first post here, so I’m still getting the lay of the land as to what kinds of topics will interest K Street readers. I am an avid blog reader and definitely consider myself a “content curator”; Here’s the kind of stuff I read and write about on my blog.

So I thought I’d do two things. First, I want point you to a few PR/Public Affairs/Advocacy related blog posts I’ve found very interesting recently – and ask you to tell me if these float your boat or not. Check ‘em out.

1. HARO Gets Serious About Crowd Sourced Journalism (Convince and Convert)

I assume you know about HARO (Help a Reporter out), the email service started by Peter Shankman that matches reporters to sources. I used it for a while until I found the overload of irrelevant emails to be too much to handle – but they have finally got their act together and put together a nice looking site where it looks like you will be able to self-select what inquiries you get (as a source, obviously). Is this kind of sort-of tech news of interest?

2. Integrating Communication: PR-Driven Social Media (CopyWrite, Ink.)

The author proposes a model for marrying traditional PR duties and social media tasks. Check out the nice debate in the comments to the post. I have plenty of ideas about this (and the changing role of PR in general) – but I won’t say what side I fall on unless you tell me you want to talk about it!

3. 2010 Public Relations: Looking at the Past to Succeed in the Future (Conversation Agent)

Along the same lines, this is a fantastic guest post by Beth Harte on how to create “truly social public relations”. This is obviously a very hot topic (the Is PR Dead? debate)- let me know if you’re thinking about these kind of issues.

4. Matrix: Breakdown of Advocacy Marketing (Jeremiah Owyang)

Here’s a chart by Jeremiah Owyang where he dissects the layers involved in advocacy marketing – meaning, to him, activities “focused on the goal of spreading, and word of mouth, and viral”. What do you think?

5. Getting Started: Brands and Cause Marketing (Lauren Fernandez)

I’m putting this one in really to highlight a really great blog by a rising star in the PR world. Lauren is also heavily involved in the #u30pro (PR professionals under 30) community on Twitter and I think her crew has a lot of interesting stuff to say about PR and social media.

So please do tell me if these are the kinds of topics/analysis you’d want to read about from me!

The second thing I’d like to do is ask you to introduce yourselves in the comments. I’m new here, I’ve just walked into the cocktail party, heading to the bar first for a Makers and Coke (no lime), maybe a little nervous… someone please say hi and tell me what you’re all about! Then we’ll see if we can’t find some great connections to be made and conversations to be had…

http://www.copywriteink.blogspot.com Rich Becker

Hi Maddie,

I don’t know if there are any sides related to my post as much as a few professionals in pursuit of the truth. But more importantly, I could love to know what your thoughts are on the topic.

All my best,
Rich
http://www.socialfish.org Maddie Grant

Thanks Rich! I actually consider myself an “observer” on the subject – because I think the traditional PR business model can’t survive the social media revolution. (This is just my personal opinion, I’m no expert on PR!) I think your model is actually a very interesting way to perhaps sell new social ways of working to an industry chained to old ways of working. I think it’s a nice middle ground. I think other end of the spectrum, the elephant in the room, so to speak, is “who needs a PR department if everyone talks to everyone directly?” But the PR industry is well aware of this threat (and certainly it will take time to happen) and that’s why I’m interested in seeing how creative the industry will manage to be to reinvent itself. What do you think?
http://www.knowlegis.net Brad Fitch

Maddie:

Great post! Very useful. And welcome to K Street Cafe. I’m one of the older bloggers (kind of a Generation “R” – we really didn’t get a cool letter of the alphabet growing up like you youngin’s). We’re glad to have you aboard (although, we’ll have to chat about your mixing fine Kentucky whiskey with soda pop).

And, in response to your question, I’ve been doing some research for the 2nd edition of “Media Relations Handbook for Associations, Nonprofits, and Congress” (www.mediarelationshandbook.com). With regard to use of social media and PR, and the “death” of PR, there are two distinct trends evolving:

1) In the face-paced, PR-firm-centered world, social media is happening faster than you text-while-driving. Innovation is happening by the minute, experimentation is everywhere.

2) In the public affairs world…not so much. Associations and nonprofits are, by nature, risk averse. They tend to be run by an older generation in their 50’s who saw the Internet arrive around the same time that their hair started to depart. They’ve got their toe in the water of social media, but are still drive by the age-old DC maxim: “Don’t write anything down you don’t want to see in the Washington Post.”
http://www.copywriteink.blogspot.com Rich Becker

Hi Maddie,

I would agree with you. Public relations needs to evolve, but not to the point where anyone with fans or followers are likely to suddenly seize the title. It cheapens the field.

In some ways, it’s already happening. Other fields challenging public relations concepts on a regular basis and professionals who cannot defend against those challenges.

There is a middle ground, one that includes refreshing the original foundation. So many public relations firms operate as media relations firms (and not very good ones), it seems that they have forgotten the very robust skill sets that public relations can bring to a company.

Look forward to your future observations.

Best,
Rich
http://www.socialfish.org Maddie Grant

@Brad – I do like “on the rocks” too. Perhaps I tend to avoid that drink if I’m feeling a little nervous about being the newbie at the party…

In all seriousness, thanks so much for your comment! I agree with you on the two trends… and as I work in the association industry, I’m all too familiar with the “risk-averse” side of things. What excites me is the idea that associations can learn some lessons (in this fast-moving social media sphere) from the mistakes that for-profit companies make; not only watch and learn, but maybe mix things up a little and use ideas from other industries in order to stay “on mission” while learning to innovate. And of course, my focus is on building community, and associations are lucky to have a built-in community in their member base – which many B2C companies don’t have.

@Rich – great point about the distinction between “public relations” and “media relations”. Would love to hear more about that!