Being Social: What a Social Media Agency (and an Online PR Agency) can Teach You About Good PR

POSTED BY: Roger Warner   /  CATEGORIES: Online PR Agency, Social Media Agency, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
POSTED ON: 16 Mar 2009
TAGS: Online PR Agency, PR, Social Media Agency, Twitter

We’ve been hiring lately and something quite obvious dawned on me last week. Online PR and Social Media firms seem to be more naturally built for the PR game than their traditional PR agency counterparts.

I’ve been pleasantly stunned by the amount of Social Media/Online PR talent out there …which got me thinking back to my old agency days and how hard it was to do good work that really moved the needle and turned people into great PR consultants.

I’m convinced the difference lies in the mechanics of what we’re doing now versus the worst excesses of the spray and pray model of yesteryear (you know the thing: write a press release, get it approved, hit send and bcc half a zillion email-weary reporters).

Today, we’re all about building a Twitter following, managing an online community, and identifying and getting involved with the right blogs and forums. A Social Media Agency and/or Online PR Agency does its work by helping clients to build relationships across lots and lots of different channels and conversations.

This is massively rewarding and totally in tune with the sorts of thing that we tend to do in our personal time. We buff up our Twitter following by night, and by day we help clients to do exactly the same thing. As a result we have a very, very definite understanding of the ethics, the output and the measurement of good Social Media work.

When was the last time you had such a grasp in traditional PR?

My point here is not to slag off PR, but to point out how I think we’ve lost our way.

Building relationships, joining communities and contributing to the debate. This is what all great PR people do: they’re naturals and they’re successful because they love their work and – most importantly – they care about it ….just like the new generation of Social Media experts.

But somewhere along the road the PR industry managed to churn out as many email bots as good consultants. And I think this is the reason we have conversations with clients (and agencies) about old Social Media chestnuts like ‘authenticity,’ ‘voice’ and ‘representation.’ These things make my toes curl because it’s never really a case of ‘old’ PR vs ‘new’ and what you can and can’t do….

Those consultants that really care for their client’s business and really understand and enjoy the issues / politics / market forces don’t make this distinction – they just get on and do great work, whatever the channel. They are ‘authentic’ and they have great tone of ‘voice’ because they always have something to interesting and timely to contribute …whereas those who don’t have a grip on their market can’t – and so Social Media often feels like an ill-fitting jacket.

But I digress….

I actually think that the PR industry is in rude health today. There are lots of extremely talented twenty-something consultants out there who are skilled to the teeth and busting to do great work. But in order to attract them and build a better future for itself, the PR industry needs to get reconnected to what it’s supposed to have been doing all along.

If you watch a half decent Social Media Agency / Online PR Agency at work then you’ll see that 90% of the magic is in BEING SOCIAL.

So this is the lesson to learn: whatever flavour of PR you’re doing, you should care for your clients, understand what they do, build relationships with them, build relationships with others (especially writers!), join communities, create interesting and valuable things, participate, give something back…. and remember that a lack of charisma can and will be fatal.

POSTED BY: Roger Warner   /  CATEGORIES: Online PR Agency, Social Media Agency, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
POSTED ON: 16 Mar 2009
TAGS: Online PR Agency, PR, Social Media Agency, Twitter