That was the question that popped up on my inbox first thing this morning. Not the best way to start the day with all this talk about killing
public relations. I think that
Maktoob Research (the senders of the email that, presumably, is being read by a couple of hundred PR professionals in the
UAE as I write) has either completely missed the plot and doesn't understand public relations and
social media or were deliberately trying to push up the number of click-
throughs on their one-question survey. If it was the later, then good on them!
So will social media kill public relations? I don't think so. At least, not as long as public relations agencies are able to adapt and stay one step ahead of everyone else in the social media space. PR agencies should be in a position to:
- Educate their clients: Lets face it, most decision makers struggle to understand the value social media can provide to the marketing mix. We need to educate them
- Provide counsel: So company X wants to build its social media presence. Great! While the advertising guys can talk about buying space, us, humble PR folk, should be in a position to provide authoritative advice on who our clients should be starting conversations with and where. As cliched as it sounds, we need to help our clients be part of the online conversation
- Implement and execute: Don't think I need to go into details on this point
In my opinion (and I'd be happy to be proven wrong) a PR agency's role in helping a client work with social media should, in its most simplistic form, roughly mirror what it does with 'traditional' media with one huge difference: rather than talking to a journalist, we're talking to Jane Blogger or John Tweeter. Of course, the approaches and processes vary, but the essence remains the same.
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