Changing The Rules: The Future Of PR

As a college student who has spent the last four years of her life toiling over the subject matter of Communication Theory and various public relations courses handed down by prestigious and respected former members of the media, I was faced with contradicting feelings of disheartenment and hope after reading a Tom Foremski article suggesting that the old PR model is dead.

The reasoning behind this statement is rooted in the very trend that has crazed the 21st century to begin with — social media. The problem, according to Foremski, is that many PR agencies are not adjusting their visions to coincide with the new digital business world. Sure, they have all hired young, desperate, tech-savvy college graduates to deal with the chaos of the ever-expanding world of social media, but it is not enough. Here are a few basic points about the current evolution of the PR world that will take the implementation of some digital Darwinism:

To begin, all media is social media. There should be no distinction between the two and everyone should be an expert in it. Who in your PR firm is responsible for handling “social media” and networking sites for the firm itself and its clients? The answer should be, to at least some degree, everyone.

Secondly, firms need to get cozy with the concept of measuring outcomes, not outputs. As Foremski points out, “so what if you e-mailed 50 journalists today?” How many of them actually showed interest through a response? This tactic of output-only is going to hurt many firms in the new era, where PR gurus predict that charging by a monthly retainer is a thing of the past and will soon be taken over by a project-by-project model.

On a related note, using newswires to put out press releases has been proved to be outdated – once again, output-focused. The people in your firm should be doing two things: contacting journalists and others directly and on a regular basis, and figuring out how to drive traffic to news stories and client Web sites.

Over the next several weeks, Foremski will be watching all of us in the PR world closely for signs of change and reporting his findings through his blog. Check it out for the latest PR topics.

Photo via Flickr/Intersection Consulting