Is the PR Industry Just Sleepwalking Between 9 and 5?
Despite impressive advances in technology and the fact that the online world is still relatively new (give or take, it’s about 15 years), many if not most PR agencies have yet to awaken to the communications opportunities. In many cases, it’s little stuff they aren’t aware of. It’s like the PR business isn’t fully aware of a fast-moving train that’s essential for making business and industry more competitive.
Here’s a recent example … My firm contacted a trade association for comment over a timely issue that is relevant to one of our corporate clients. Our client wanted a story about the issue for the online news site we manage for them.
What sounded easy turned into a challenge after the association’s small PR agency got involved. The agency wasn’t prepared.
Sure enough the PR agency in Washington, DC, emailed us a statement … the same statement they had blindly blasted out on Vocus,* the press release list service that’s used by many lazy PR people to send client releases into oblivion.
But, when we asked the agency for the association’s logo or a graphic, they melted down. It never occurred to them. They actually suggested that we contact the association, their client, in hopes of getting a logo. Yikes?! How incompetent is that?!!!
It hadn’t crossed their mind that stories today need images and graphics in order to be used, whether by a blogger, the mainstream media or a corporate news site. All this agency did was write statements and press releases, send them out on Vocus’ email lists (that generally end up being caught by spam filters) and bill the client. They were not thinking about what might get more attention for their client in today’s digital era.
PR today needs to be:
- More savvy about what it takes to get a story placed in today’s media.
- Avoid the outdated model of using blast press releases services that rarely accomplish tangible results.
- More focused on the use of relevant images.
- More interested in what will help their clients than sleepwalking between 9 and 5.
Hey, it’s not just me … talk with anyone in today’s media about how irrelevant PR people are making themselves …
* Let me just add this note … the point of this blog post seemingly has been missed on the Vocus people who have written to me in protest. I use Vocus as an example of the proliferation of media list services used by PR people who rarely interface with the media. They are other such services and all enablers.
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Category: Corporate Journalism, Featured
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A great argument for at least trying to produce the “social media release”.
A number of forward-thinking individuals are working to refine the social media release, and that’s an exciting direction.
Interesting thoughts, David, and thanks for sharing your perspective. While I think its a bit of a stretch to ask if PR professionals are sleepwalking throughout the day in terms of their work and obligations to clients based off just the one anecdote you provide, I do agree with you that in certain cases, we still see PR pros acting as though this is 1975 and the mere thought of anything digital scares the crap out of them.
The biggest takeaway from your post for me is that PR pros need to be more in tune with what today’s media needs. And that is increasingly help on getting a story or blog post out faster than ever before, and with very limited staff and resources to do so, they need images, quotes they can pull directly from an e-mail correspondence with them, stats, facts, figures, etc. that they can easily pull and drop into a story.
Increasingly, I find us as PR pros becoming more a part of the reporting process than ever before, which, IMO, means our efforts and strategic counsel for clients are necessary and will be in demand increasingly so, but it also means we will have greater ethical demands placed on us, not only to clients, but to media as a whole.
@KeithTrivitt
Fair enough, Keith, and your comment is much appreciated. But too many of today’s crop of PR people … even the junior ones … are locked into “1975.”
Dave — I’ve long read your (many) posts with a sideways comment about Vocus. I don’t disagree with the principle of what you say, but I also don’t think you understand what the software does. It’s designed for relationship building; think: CRM for PR professionals. Interaction tracking, information gathering and aggregation all geared towards understanding what a writer is interested in, in order to reach them with relevant content. The best PR pros understand this: relationships matter. No doubt about it. Can technology be misused? Absolutely. Still there’s countless cases — mail-merge e-mail comes to mind. I’d be happy to show you what we do — or since we’re both local, sit down and chat anytime.
Cheers,
Frank / fstrong-at-vocus.com
Frank,
It’s David.
Appreciate your comment. I’ve followed Vocus since about 2003 when it moved from being data collection software for the medical profession to the PR uses, and I know how Vocus has asked clients initially for their media lists which are not always accurate or valid. Sort of a garbage in-garbage out approach, in my opinion. But, more than that, today’s most effective methods for meaningful communications are not about promising to reach vast numbers but rather about providing influence, incisive value and ROI. Unfortunately, Vocus – through no particular fault of your company – is used too often by lazy and/or insecure PR people and agencies in attempting to prove results through numbers, an approach that is neither relevant nor particularly honest.
David
David: Vocus was never a data collection software — and it never catered to the medical profession. It did start off as PAC software, a product that still exists and is used by many clients today (has nothing to do with media relations). However it grew to evolve into PR around 1999 — SaaS before SaaS was cool. Though I’m an in-house guy now, I was then at an agency and a beta customer. Perhaps one of it’s first customers. Today I’d like to think I’m one of it’s toughest customers, though I clearly advocate for the company, I take comments like yours quite seriously – as does the company.
Like I wrote before, I don’t disagree with your comment in principle — the right information, to the right people, at the right time. That’s where Vocus is a great tool. Smarter. Not more.
That said, the media relations component, is just one piece of a bigger puzzle now, given social media and social media monitoring.
Frank,
Actually, I got a different story from one of the company’s founders when I interviewed him in 2001. He told me that Vocus, when originally located in Reston, had worked on data collection software for the medical profession but saw better potential in the field of PR. None of them had any experience in either field. Interestingly, his story was repeated to me in 2004 by the newly hired VP of Marketing for Vocus who said pretty much the same thing. So, it is possible, Frank, that you have been sold a bit of corporate revisionist history.
While I know Vocus sells to PR people and agencies who have not bothered to take the time to develop meaningful media contacts, the company could be far more valuable and meaningful were it to provide enhanced guidance on how communications is managed in today’s digital era, rather than just hustle the promise of reaching hundreds of thousand of media contacts.
David
David – I’m sorry, but your last comment simply is not accurate. In fact, I’ve pointed out the opposite in my previous comments. If 2004 is the last time you spoke to someone from the company, or saw the software, then my offer still stands: since we are both local, I’d be happy to sit down with you in person. A lot can happen in six years.
Okay, Frank. You are certainly welcome to your opinion. But others at Vocus, including a founder, have had a different story.
Nice post David – thanks for giving me more evidence to help justify my policy of taking the time to build a legitimate media contacts list and writing specific pitches for individual journalists.
Besides Vocus, Cision and other CRM solutions that have their own media lists, do you recommend any CRM tools to PR professionals who already have a good number of contacts and mainly want to better manager them?