public relations and the future.

A month and a half ago, someone asked me what I do on this website. I gave him an answer that was accurate, but felt insufficient. Something to the tune of 'I blog about media and strategy, focusing on the stuff that interests me - trends, change, etc', but less articulate.

At this point in my life, PR is what I do. I love parts of it - the writing, discovering a good angle, building relationships and creating strategy. There are parts of it I don't love - the reputation the industry has in some circles, and the grind aspect to some of it. But the only thing that worries me about Public Relations is that it doesn't seem to have much of a plan for the future, and I don't want to end up in another music industry.

PR is heavily reliant on old media. TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio. Each and every one of these is in the midst of some kind of decline, weather in earnings, in relevance, or in audience. And most of them have less than no plan for what comes next. TV is still scrambling to understand that it doesn't matter how or where people watch you shows, just that they get watched (advertising strategy should be shaped by viewing patterns, not the other way around). Newspapers are ignoring the one advantage they have (respect for their status) and are hacking away at journalists and fact checkers, and trying to emulate blogging in an attempt to stay relevant. Magazines still have validity, but haven't really defined a new space for themselves - they've just avoided the need to panic quite as totally thus far. Radio is more important as a means of connecting an iPod to a car stereo than it is as a medium. Internet radio is well on it's way to being killed, and that's coming from someone who's hopeful.

All of this means, more or less, that PR needs a redefined role. It isn't just about industry attention or media coverage, but those have been the major doorways to public attention and ubiquity for a long time.

The short version of my point? Most PR firms don't have a solid strategy for social media. This isn't shocking, it's been shown time and again that most advertising firms, and most marketing firms don't either. The difference is, PR is ABOUT social media, in a very inherent way. An advertiser wants you to see things, and develop an interest in them. PR wants your friend to want you to care about the thing they care about at the moment. It's different routes to the same place - PR has the benefit of trust (whether warranted or not) in media outlets.

Old media outlets are losing ground to individuals and new media very quickly.

The core of what I do on brokengent is look at this approaching problem, although I definitely didn't think of it that way when I started. I had no aspirations of being in PR at the time, but I happily stumbled into it. If PR has a future, it's in learning how to deal with social media, as a facilitator, but not as an irritant.

Bloggers hate PR intrusion, usually. I can see why, as much as I dislike the fact. Part of it comes to the same reason people hate Marketers and Ad People. Sometimes we have to represent something that isn't (at least on the surface) what people want. It's easy to generate interest and buzz for something that is desired. At those points, PR is one of the best businesses in the world, because all you do is explain, discuss, and nurture. If someone cares, you give them more information to care about, more context. I love this, PR as a form of cultural curation. It only works with trust.

It's more complicated than I'm making it seem. Sometimes the wrong person is spoken to about the wrong product, and efforts come across as selfish and lazy. Sometimes efforts are selfish and lazy, based more on a desire to get to as many as fast as possible, rather than helping to build relationships. But personal experience tells me that individuals, especially online, don't really trust the PR person, for any longer than it takes to get the new toy or experience before the regular public.

The problem comes when the pressure from up top, as found in old media orgs, no longer keeps an uneasy truce between both sides. The problem is that not being trusted as a starting point is instant fail in social media in online communities.

I recently updated my little 'about' blurb with the following: 'everyone has a voice, so you need strategy that can anticipate any number of contradictory stakeholders, while maintaining a consistent message and meaning across media.'

PR, as an industry, needs to learn how to be a valuable member in online communities, consistently. We need to serve both clients, and the population. We need to do it in a way consistent with the meaning and values of each community. Anyone who can't or won't do both is going to have a hard time in the coming years, and this applies to Advertising and Marketing as well. PR, more than related industries, is reliant on the current media iteration. And we need to start planning for when it shifts.

So, this is what we do here. Hope that clears things up.