pr as arg.

To me, the future of PR is in the mass narrative.  Not the official company line, or in the image generated by a specific piece of coverage, but in the collage created by every mention a company gets, whether from the New York Times or a rarely read WordPress blog. 

To work with this future, a company needs to do whatever it can to use it’s stance as a source of information and the authority on itself, to influence the attitudes and associations that the community attaches to the brand itself.

I’ve asserted before that I don’t consider myself someone who works in a media role, I consider myself someone who works with narratives.  This isn’t to say I craft narratives like an author, my function is more of a curator – I take facts, elements of a story, and make them available, either publicly or to specific interested parties in the media.  Through this, I exercise a small amount of influence (but not control) over the public perception of a brand.

I don’t write words on a page.  I encourage the development narratives across society, traditionally through media outlets.  (Or at least, I do when things work well.)

My vision for the future of PR is communication strategy modeled after an Alternate Reality Game.

I’ve spoken about ARG’s before, as a method of advertising and building engagement with a brand or product.  However, I think the same concepts can be shifted slightly, and put to use to engage the public, and share information with them, in a way that is mutually beneficial to community and brand.

I’ll add to this in the future, but here are some starting concepts:

Information Seeding:  Giving information to engaged parties instead of just widely read media outlets.  I wouldn’t suggest massive exclusives, but any company that would share information about upcoming offerings through a forum they did not own, and for no reason other than knowing the community there would care, stands a decent chance of building loyalty and interest in the products / services they offer.

Cumulative Narrative:  The whole story comes from learning about the individual elements, rather than an official line published somewhere, that omits defining information.  If people want to learn about what you do, they should be able to look at any element of your business and understand the core values that drive the overall brand.  Be defined by every part of your reality, not just the parts you think of as ‘media friendly’.  (This also suggests that you should have a reality you are comfortable with from every angle, not just the ones you consider ‘media facing’).  More importantly, people who care SHARE information.  The main thing that PR can learn from ARG’s is that a community that informs itself is more efficient, and generates more engagement, than official sources alone can.

Discrete Sub-Narratives:  Create more points of entry, and explore the stories within each story.  There’s no reason to share any information that would damage your business, but why shouldn’t every key feature of what you offer have it’s own point of contact for interested parties?  Off the top of my head, a ‘production blog’ for each key team building part of an interesting whole allows a community a better chance to find something that interests them, and a greater understanding of why they should care.  As mentioned before, each of these elements builds into a greater whole, which, if necessary, can be summarized (think social media optimized press releases).

‘Playing Fair’:  This is more related to any mystery story, but it’s a key point.  Narratives that play fair offer enough information that readers can come to reasonable conclusions.  A narrative that doesn’t play fair comes to a conclusion that no amount of rational speculation would have come to.  Playing fair encourages speculation.  While companies like Apple can generate speculation through secrecy, leaks drive the interest of the crowd.  If you control the flow of your own information, you can create a connection with the community.  And they can make themselves a part of your narrative.

Players Direct the Game:  The best narratives build and change with the ideas the crowd generates.  I’m not suggesting changing your brand at the whim of the crowd, but if people are interested in a specific element of what you do, release more information about it.  If there is a large concentration of interest in a specific geographical area, arrange a small event and spread information around discreetly.

The core concept of all this is to learn from the best example we currently have of telling a directed narrative through (and not TO) a large number of interested parties.  I’m going to try to go deeper into this, and expand on each element I mentioned (as well as a few others) in the coming weeks.