I have not done an exhaustive survey, but get the sense that the social media release is not
registering much beyond a small number of forward thinking PR people and marketers. I also feel that the PR profession has some work to do in convincing people that we have strategies for dealing with the shifting and rapidly evolving world of media that lead to the results our clients and employers are seeking.
I’ll share a few recent anecdotes. A person who writes news stories and blogs for a fairly high profile online publication recently delivered a seminar for the agency on blogging. She deals with lots of PR types, and is very savvy about tech. After the seminar, a couple of us took her to lunch and I had the chance to question her a bit about the changing world of PR, including social media release (SMR). The latter topic drew a big blank, zippo.
I got the same reaction when speaking at length about the SMR with a tech savvy A list blogger recently – someone who also deals with lots of PR and marketing types. Ditto for many others, over the past months.
Finally, I introduced another agency – an events and online ad / marketing shop – to one of our clients. We had worked with this agency before on a project at another account, and the collaboration had been a big success by many measures. Examining the sell sheet the account person sent over (and copied me on) was a little like looking in a mirror – they apparently offer a number of the same types of social media services that my employer does (yeah, shame on me for not being more informed about this earlier).
The larger point – and what I alluded to in my last post, Agencies “Trash Talk” over the Social Media Prize – is that we as a field cannot afford to be the proverbial “cobbler’s kid without shoes.”
We need to demonstrate that we have vision, and can show leadership in the new Unmediated Media era. Again, as per my last post, some people (albeit those with their own axes to grind) say leadership will not come from PR agencies, but from others, such as dedicated social media shops.
This vision needs to be grounded by proven methods. The SMR has somehow gotten caught up in this and become emblematic to many of PR’s response to a changing world. As such, it is a great big Pinata and an easy target for criticism. The jury is still out on the SMR; some intriguing cases have been documented, but as I said earlier, there is by no means a groundswell of support that I can discern beyond real early adopters.
In short, we need better PR for PR – not empty hucksterism – we need to constantly be questioning, innovating, testing, documenting and promoting results.
