What will separate the winners from the losers in the New PR Way is the willingness to take risks and experiment.
We need to become part mad scientist, part hacker and full time students of changing communications methods and shifting media landscapes.
What works best? What new tools can be leveraged?
I know most people – myself included – quickly tire of philosophy and prognostication. We want to know what works best and we want it now. We have been trained to be time aware and not waste time. We have been trained to maximize biilable hours and stick closely to carefully crafted plans.
Who has time to endlessly surf social networks, blog, micro blog, explore virtual worlds, etc. etc.?
And how do we convince clients to allow us to allocate part of the PR budget for these purposes?
And how do we convince clients to allow us to allocate part of the PR budget for these purposes?
Isn’t this vast Web supposed to fulfill our every information need, and serve up “just the facts” on demand? Aren’t there people out there who have all the neat answers and are posting these to their blogs as they speak?
Perhaps I should just shut up and tell everyone what works best?
Ah, were it so simple. The world is changing so fast and so radically that I would be very suspicious of anyone who claims to have it all figured out.
Just like any good tinkerer or scientist, you need to see what works in your playing field, for your employers or clients. You need to hypothesize, test and verify results. In short, you need to use the scientific method.
It is really really hard to figure this stuff out without the hands on past. You need to make the time and take the risks. You need to be an intrepid explorer and aggressive learner.
Last week, PR took a beating via Chris Anderson’s post, which was covered pretty much everywhere, including on this blog. The lesser known but equally important story is that email took a beating. It is full of pitfalls and quickly becoming less effective. Continue to play most of your chips there and don’t explore the new communications tools at your peril.
So I don’t have quick answers for today, but one thing I will say is that if you are in PR and you are not blogging, spending time on soclal networks, understanding how search and SEO works, and mastering RSS, you will soon be toast. It sounds exhausting and actually almost impossible in light of all other routine stuff that needs to get done. But do it well and you will be doing wonders for your career, your employer and / or clients, even though all the experiments won’t work and some of the avenues of inquiry will be blind alleys.
