Why You’re Right to be an Online PR Skeptic
This post is in response to Online PR: Sceptics in the House by Greg Smith of The PR Lab. I’m posting it here instead of in his comments, because I refuse to comment on a blog that requires you to register first… good PR doesn’t include making your readers work hard just to reach you Greg. ;)
“Apart from screens of text, I’ve read three books on the subject: Public Relations Online (Tom Kelleher), Beyond Buzz (Lois Kelly) and The New Rules of Marketing and PR (David Meerman Scott). They’re all fine works in their own right, but don’t really tell me anything about some new secret to PR online. They generally say its about engagement, the personal touch and reaching specific groups. However, I’ve always practised that anyway.”
And you were right to always practice that anyway Greg. Any even remotely competent PR professional would have been operating that way all along. Online PR is nothing special (coming from an online PR specialist oddly enough). It’s just about using the old tried and true methods in a new medium and with new tools.
“Yes, web sites are important (particularly online “newsrooms”), as is the monitoring of newsgroups. But Social Media Releases? Facebook?”
Amen! We’ve got someone speaking some sense for a change! Welcome to the blogosphere Greg! You’ve officially made my “must read” short list.
Social media releases are ridiculous. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together was already tying releases to social media options before the “new” template and hyped up buzz word came along. All it’s good for in reality is drumming up a bit of attention for press releases and the so-called PR 2.0. Look at it more as training wheels for the online PR-impaired (read offline-focused firms and their clients who need baby steps, hand-holding, and a lot of explanations to make them understand the value of online distribution). I’ve dealt with that issue in the past, so I won’t rant more about it here. As for Facebook… well, I just posted on that issue as well.
So why are these tools so popular in the PR community? Because they’re slow, and desperately trying to grab onto any fad that rears its ugly head to pretend for even a second that they’re “with it.” Most are worthless PR-wise to the majority of people using them, or they have so little impact that the time spent using them is wasted instead of being spent in more productive means. No one forgets their audience faster than when there’s a new tool to play with and their favorite PR blogger hypes the hell out of it.
“Steve Outing (7 June 2007) writing for the respected Poynter.org, cites the case of American PR executive Steve Reubel, who gave up traditional media for a week to see if he’d be well informed by reading weblogs. Reubel discovered he missed out on many major news items.”
I wouldn’t quite knock the blogosphere. That’s where I’ll draw my line. Blogs are effective if used correctly (of course, a lot of people don’t use them correctly). They’re not meant to be a substitute for the mainstream news media. They’re a supplement, and an outlet for news the mainstream media wouldn’t touch (great if you’re in a niche market not often making major news).
Rubel’s experiment was faulty to begin with by an obvious misunderstanding of the blogosphere (which was a bit shocking frankly, although I guess you’d be hard-pressed to find any kind of experiment without its fair share of faults). His rule of not clicking through to news stories cited in blogs was just plain stupid. Blogs are more about commentary than the news itself, and it’s their responsibility to cite sources if they spread the word about something. It’s not generally a blogger’s goal to be the first to publish a story, but rather the first to get serious discussion about that story going (that’s the essence of their viral nature). There are a few other issues, but that’s the big one that comes to mind.
Remember, just because he didn’t feel he got enough of the “meat” behind major news stories, it’s not exactly the bloggers’ fault… it’s the fault of the person not knowing where to look on the blogosphere. On the same note, if you reversed this experiment with a niche audience (such as someone interested in the SEO industry news only), you’d be hard-pressed to find “major” online news in that industry covered in a single major news outlet half of the time, even though the news often affects everyone owning a website or blog.
So anyway, there’s my $.02. Online PR is important. Just don’t get all of your information on the subject from people who are trying to use it for primarily brick and mortar businesses. Most are honestly pretty clueless; including some of the supposed top dogs in the field. It’s sad actually. But someday they’ll all catch up. Here’s the best thing you can do: ignore PR blogs when it comes to the topic, and instead focus on tech blogs, Internet marketing blogs (who have become the real authority sources in our work on the Web even if not intentionally), and SEO blogs. Then you’ll really learn a thing or two, and you won’t be exposing yourself to every fad under the sun long after the early adopters have come and gone; you’ll know what’s actually going on in the now.
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Comments
PR people have absolutely no excuse. It’s their responsibility to fully research a method and how it would apply to their target audiences, and the majority aren’t doing that when it comes to things like Facebook. It’s not a question of whether it’s the “next big thing.” It’s a “been there done that” thing, so by definition it can’t be. PRs’ problem is that they’re ignorant of other professional groups who have already thoroughly tested most new tools long before they even know about their existence. Those of us in online business have been using these things from day 1, know how they’re manipulated and abused(thereby discrediting a large number of accounts, not to mention fluffing up perceived “reach”), etc. It’s a fad. It was a fad before the PR crowd started chirping about it. They just didn’t do their research. But as I’ve said before, for the few actually targeting the primary userbase of Facebook, more power to them. Most talking about it for PR value haven’t been.
I’ll admit, now is a great time to be young and in the PR industry, because we’re often the primary market these kinds of sites and tools are targeting, giving us a bit of an edge on being in the know.
Jenn, I have a bit of sympathy for brand-newbie (Aussie) blogger Greg Smith, who isn’t going to know what hit him when he discovers that he’s been spotlighted by Naked PR! Still, that’s certainly not a bad thing, particularly as you mainly agreed with his post.
To give some context to his concerns, I refer you (if I haven’t previously) to this white paper commissioned by the Institute for Public Relations:
http://www.instituteforpr.org/digest_entry/what_we_think_we_know_about_technology_and_pr/
My PRC colleague, Markus Pirchner, brought its publication to our attention last Friday (September 21st) and we’ve been having some discussion about it on our working platform on The Communicators’ Network. Frank Ovaitt asked whether he could reproduce our comments on the white paper’s dedicated web page…which is the reason why I visited the IPR’s website again today. And that’s when I found Greg Smith’s comment and blog link, paid a visit, read and let some of my peeps know about it (including you).
Anyhow, the short version of this comment would be that to a large extent I believe Greg posted in reaction to John Pavlik’s paper, “Mapping the Consequences of Technology on Public Relations,” so readers of Naked PR might benefit from checking it out as well.
Happy ranting, and I hope you are feeling 100 per cent better by now.
lol Yes, better just in time for my brother’s wedding tomorrow thankfully. And thanks to you and your always interesting references, I’ve spent half of my day in the blogosphere now instead of packing up for that. So much for a day off. lol :)
I haven’t had a chance to read the white paper, but I’ll definitely do that when I’m back in town. Although looking at the summary for the moment, it’s looking like a lot of old news. Those statistics have been around for quite a while. But who knows… maybe I’ll be surprised when I give it a thorough look. :)
And you know what? It was just nice having someone to agree with for once! lol
Thanks for pointing people to the paper. :)
Wow. Many thanks to all of you for commenting. Informative and provocative. I will be staying in touch with this. Meantime I’m going surfing (in the ocean).
[…] (SMR) ist ein Hype-Thema. Oder nicht? Jennifer Mattern von Naked PR ist da durchaus kritisch. Zitat: “Social media releases are ridiculous. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together was […]
I think part of the problem is a lot of people don’t really know what is going to be a fad and what isn’t. And unfortunately, there’s no way to tell until its effectiveness is proven over and over again. I’m sure that’s the reason most of us are all signed up for every network and application under the sun. Everyone wants to be a thought leader and on the off chance that something really is The Next Big Thing, it’s quite a feather in the cap to say you’ve been utilising from the beginning.
That said, I’m still undecided about Facebook. We’ve just started to work more with groups and have had some successes. I was at the end of my college career when I joined, so I’ve been on it for a almost 3 years. And I have to admit that it’s nice to say to a client who wants to learn more that I’ve been on it from the very beginning. Even now, after all that “experience” I’m still waiting a little longer before I judge it completely.