Public Relations in an Everyone is Media World

Confess it, you have thought about rewriting a news item in your own head. Especially when you've had an experience with a company's service or a product that didn't quite live up to the story you're now reading in the newspaper or trade magazine.

Today, you don't even need to have a blog to be a publisher.

With tools such as Posterous and Tumblr, or if you have a Facebook page, you can easily post content and socialize it, or take a series of small bites on Twitter. Good for you, good for everyone.

How do you apply communication in a world where everyone can be media?

It could happen to your business

Rich Becker provides an example of what happens when complaints are news. I don't know about you, I'm still marveling at the response a business owner wrote to a customer. Small business owners tend to work many roles, from sales, to administrative duties, to marketing and communications.

While we could all agree that publics can be a bit of a challenge, it is never a good idea to act on impulse when communicating in digital media. It may feel good to write what you think, and it will hurt you long term. What is valid for college grads and young employees is valid for seasoned business owners.

Indeed, loss of business is much less public -- people prefer to avoid confrontation. Who counsels you on matters of public communication?

PR doesn't equal press release

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) posted a definition of public relations that can help you navigate how the profession has shifted from providing publicity to building relationships. It is still prevalent thinking that PR = press releases and media relations.

Why is it that most business owners and organization executives still insist on focusing precisely on those two? Probably this is due to two ideas: 1) that the company message needs to be pushed out; 2) that media is the only viable third party endorsement.

Yet, this strategy still largely depends on other people doing your bidding based upon one document and repeated, sometimes annoying, insistence as to its relevance for all. A document that, after dozens of reviews, may also have lost the focus on what it wanted to convey. 

Become a platform

Today you have the tools to become not just a regular commentator on a particular topic. Appealing to search traffic in the process. You have the opportunity to become the filter and educator on an issue that is pressing for you and your industry.

Often financial services firms ask me how they can blog or participate in new media with all the regulatory issue they face. How about starting a specific education channel for customers? Pick one specialty, and become the go to aggregator and commentator on that topic.

Organizations continue to be stuck on their products and services -- and miss on the opportunity to change the information game.

Examples of everyone is media

Fred Wilson, a venture capital (VC) professional who took to blogging, has become a popular and well read commentator on all things related to technology and VCs. In the process, he discovered that his readers found it beneficial to learn more about all things related to running a business. So he started a series of MBA Mondays. 

In the face of the financial meltdown, both mainstream media and financial services firms did a fine job at talking to us as if we knew what they know. Alas, we haven't developed an app to read minds, yet. A simple site aggregating background, key facts and salient useful information would have been helpful.

Matt Thompson built such a context in the money meltdown. He did something similar to convey information about the US health system reform -- probably the best explanation for the site's intended purpose comes in the form of a response to a letter to the editor.

When Drew Olanoff discovered he had cancer, he didn't sit idle. Instead he built a platform to help those who went through the same experience tell their story and receive help. The Blame Drew's Cancer hashtag was a stroke of genius -- you get to vent about something and when you use that tag, a donation could be made to LIVESTRONG.

From the site: when Drew beats Cancer they hope to have sponsors that will donate a dollar for every participant to partner LIVESTRONG. Geoff Livingston raised funds for @LiveStrong cancer research recently. In the post, he provides some lessons learned you can use to design a donation campaign for your nonprofit.

***

There is still tremendous untapped potential for organizations to become publishers, curators, and platforms for useful information and resources pertaining to their industry and business. Why wait to have an issue to anticipate, analyze and interpret public opinion, for example?

Think of the potential to conduct and evaluate programs of action and communication to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to the success of your organization’s purpose. Today you can do that on an ongoing basis. 

Research a niche, find a need, go for it -- or find someone who has, and sponsor them.

© 2010 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Giles (Webconomist)]

Good thoughts. Perhaps one of the challenges for businesses is to understand the value of assigning a resource. Which will become yet another value add for good PR agencies in the future.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Very fair point, Giles. Becoming a resource helps you get more coverage in more places, not just media. It also allows you to go direct with customers, to appeal directly to their information needs during their buying process. I agree that the challenge with thinner and thinner staff is to assign precious resources to building such a platform.

[steven wang]

Outstanding points. This should be the future of every part of business, sales, PR, marketing or even finance. So my crazy thought is that if someone can integrate this social thing from the very beginning, he/she will be the next Google or Zappos.

Steven
@anqinglaowang

[Judy Gombita]

That PRSA definition was adopted on November 6, 1982, by the PRSA National Assembly. It's not new. I would also say that it's not the most cited.

[Nick Shin]

Disclosure: I am the SEM & Social Media @Marketwire (newswire service)

A good, thought provoking post. I'm glad you introduced the readers to examples that not many people know about.

With the advent of social media, I think many people understand that PR and social media now go hand in hand. Whether it is "still prevalent thinking that PR = press releases and media relations" is up for debate. PR professionals and non-PR professionals understand the importance of building relationships. Social media has allowed this growth to happen within the industry.

Nick @shinng
http://www.twitter.com/marketwire

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Steven - what can I add here? That was a really good thought!

@Judy - thank you for linking your post with a newer definition to the comment, and for the lovely email exchange. I thought of PRSA because I've been a long time member. At some point, I contributed to the local newsletter, etc. It makes sense that there would be something more from 1982 to 2010!

@Nick - social media goes hand in hand with HR, with R&D, business development... you get the point. Trust me on this one, professionals may know PR is more than press releases, business owners are still catching up, companies every size, too.

[Rich Becker]

Valeria,

One of the things I love most about social media is exactly that — that it places an emphasis on public communication because, suddenly, all communication is public and most of it is semi-permanent.

There is no praise for transparency when runaway thoughts because the defining message. For all the benefits, we caution our clients that social media only looks like idle conversation.

Best,
Rich

[Grantly Lynch]

Spreading my network