4 Reasons PR Agencies Are Failing in Social Media

A couple of weeks ago, Jason Keath wrote a post that got many thoughtful comments and reactions. I agree that good communication professionals understand the power of storytelling and know that relationship building is a worthy activity and work on action steps to develop good relationships.

Indeed, a retainer arrangement is a good way to go in social media. Especially if you need to ramp up your own people over time, and have constant needs and request, it will cost you less to go that way. Plus, it will help you maintain consistency.

And if you're worried your people will screw up -- customers or employees, they are people and they might -- PR agencies may also provide crisis communications counsel and services. Of course, not all are known for doing a stellar job at it, and the expert may be a different one from your day to day team.

At this point, you may have already realized how dangerous generalizations can be. You may have a bigger relationship with a digital agency, in that case they'd know your business better, for example. Depending on your research needs, PR agencies may be ill equipped to deal with segmentation analysis. I'm digressing...

To his 4 reasons PR agencies are taking over social media, I'd like to list 4 reasons PR agencies are failing in social media:

(1.) PR is having a hard time letting go of the pitch

When we accept that PR agencies do relationship building, we're making one ginormous assumption -- that the process of reaching out to mainstream media, which they do based upon reach and numbers, is the exact same with bloggers.

How do they know your blog is worth reaching out to on behalf of their client? By and large because it's listed on a top bloggers list. They know nothing about your readers, how could they if they have taken no time to interact with them in the comments to your posts? Or reading enough of them in the first place.

I've been thinking a lot about the advice many of us have given PR pros about pitching story angles -- know the subject matter the blogger likes to cover, read their blog, etc. While this is still valid, I'm thinking that there is one fundamental disconnect we have probably not communicated well enough or with enough clarity -- the best kind of pitch is not a pitch at all, it's a conversation.

How many agencies take the time to be truly helpful to the bloggers they'd consider in their clients' sweet spot? I still see a ton of canned emails and the most annoying follow ups that read like their clients are entitled to coverage. 

Case in point: a blogger who finds your pitch offensive, or tactless, decides to post it with their take on how you could have just spent more time getting to know them and their readers. What then?

(2.) PR is having a hard time learning the client's business

Social media is very content intensive. It's also about learning about how to write content for the digital medium. It's not about making introductions anymore. It's about learning the business deeply enough to be able to generate content with or in some cases on behalf of the client.

The model is shifting, there are fewer mainstream media outlets and thousands of online properties without enough editors/writers or with editors who won't get on the phone with a subject matter expert because they have no time. And the time lines are getting ridiculously short.

Knowing your client's business will help you shorten time lines, or answer questions on the fly when a blogger replies they're interested. And more and more, you may need to step in to help clients shape their own publications.

Case in point: the client is interested in you leading their social media efforts and all you can do is ask to get on painfully long phone calls with their subject matter experts to gather information so you can write posts. How do you handle ghost writing questions when you hit publish? How do you handle writing for digital media?

(3.) PR is still having a hard time with measurement

With a few rare exceptions, like the work KD Paine has been doing for decades, PR agencies have still not gotten their act together when it comes to measurement. Yes, they may be better at monitoring and listening, and now probably sentiment analysis.

They still need to learn to move away from impressions, and into how to correlate social ecosystems, influence analysis, and digital media to business results. I'm not talking about leads, PR is not designed to generate leads, you have lead generation for that. However, you may make connections. Connections are good.

Does your PR agency know how to put the public back in PR measurement? Do they report beyond exposure to engagement, influence on perceptions and attitudes, action resulted from the social media effort?

Case in point: check you reports and do let me know if you get those other metrics. I'd be thrilled to add an update to this post if we identify a trend here.

(4.) PR is still stuck with media while publics go underserved

By treating bloggers like media outlets, PR agencies are still failing to see beyond the media relations part of their charter. For many, it's probably also a case of educating clients on the value of building relationships with all stakeholders or resetting the expectation they helped create.

Today, many of those publics are direct customers for the client business. An enterprising agency would find a way to work with data bases and cross reference stakeholders with bloggers, influencers, and people who use social media.

Social media tends to have them all in one stream, without differentiation. So the best data base wins. Have PR agencies learned how to build efficient data bases? Being human and getting creative also get attention beyond media. Something PR agencies are still learning about themselves.

Case in point: ask any PR professional if they do this and they'll say that of course they do. To that, I say bullocks. They will support an internal visionary who does.

***

The biggest reason of course, is that I believe social media should be handled in house and not by any one agency. Sure, they can get you set up and started, help with training, support measurement and the creation of other assets to share and provide through social media.

These fours are the main reason why no agencies will ever supplant an internal team. They can augment and support it. Replace it? Forget about it.

[image courtesy of Phil h]

© 2010 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Marshall]

Well I like this post. I'd check the sentiment part again - maybe you give them too much credit - even here.

[Eric Weaver]

Agreed on most points. I've noticed many of my clients, however, are restricted from augmenting headcount to build a social media team, yet still have a budget for social activity. For those folks, outsourcing to a savvy agency can work. Should that be the PR firm? My money says no, for the same reasons you list above.

Nice post.

- Eric Weaver

[Dara Bell]

I also agree that PR Professionals unstand the power of storytelling and know that relationship building but the technology is stumbling block right now for the industry as a whole. I think privately individuals are using the Facebook Twitter FF to develop good relationships. This is not happening in the 9-5 workday.

The decsions and spend are not making it to developing technology, the result is some may fall behind in strategy, and some cases not learn this at all.

[Rishi]

Largely social media focused point of view. I think here is where social media experts i.e. bloggers et al, need to understand what PR contributes. Do not think Bloggers will provide the quality or insight if they go on the way they are. Anyway most successful bloggers are current or ex journalists.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Marshall - was looking at some mitigating factors. I agree, we're not there in my experience, yet.

@Eric - we had a great discussion here and on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago about outsourcing social media. There are some ways in which it makes sense, others where it doesn't and these four points, regardless of the type of agency, are a strong reason for the parts that cannot be outsourced.

@Dara - personal/professional are are different ways of using the tools: the objectives change, the strategy changes, etc. Biggest stumbling block is separating personal agendas from business needs, I find.

@Rishi - funny thing is that PR is one of the things I do in my day job and I don't believe social media is the answer to all ills. Generalizations being dangerous applies to comments as well. I'm a corp person who spent the last 10 years understanding online communications, building communities, and writing based upon solid research and experience. My rule is simple: don't write about stuff you don't know or have not researched/experienced. Maybe this helps contextualizing this post for you?

[Joe Buhler]

Couldn't agree more with your comments. My personal experience as a blogger is just one case in point. I haven't received any PR pitches that tell me the agent has ever read my blog. All they see is that it's listed in the travel category but even by just reading the title should tell them it deals with travel as an industry, not with giving travel advice to the public.

Even my occasional tweets alerting them on that issue hasn't changed the reality, which again tells me they don't engage in any serious research about the right targets for their clients. To add responsibility for social media outreach to their tasks is almost sure to fail.

[Marcus Andrews]

Valeria I'm a fan of you're content and posts but this is far from a good argument as why PR should handle social media. What do you have against PR?

The worst section is about PR having a hard time learning their clients business. To pitch the media on behalf of a client you better know everything about your client because they will ask. I work in a dual role at my PR agency on traditional media relations accounts and on the New Media team. With strong knowledge of bloggers and social media I can tell you that our traditional account teams do an excellent job of navigating social media and adapting traditional media tactics to it, as well as creating content for social media. Account teams also have the New Media team (current bloggers and former digital agency people) to help navigate new technologies and platforms.

PR is on top of Social Media and is still the best agency to own it. As nice as it would be for brands to own it in house they can't or won't and PR agencies do it the best.
-Marcus

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Joe - ditto for me, alas. The other day I received a pitch to write about a book I had reviewed. A simple search on my blog would have uncovered that.

@Marcus - there is a simple way to validate your comment about how *you* handle PR: satisfied customers who engage you for repeat business. Learning a customer business is hard work so kudos for you for doing that. It's a good differentiating point to have on your side. Your comment last line however reveals a disdain for clients who "can't" or "won't" own what is essentially their own brands. Which one is it? Our clients rock, or our clients suck and we're there to rescue them?

[Marcus Andrews]

I was thinking in general terms from the consumer's POV or the social media elite's POV. Who of course frown on content not coming straight from the source. That being we push our clients to produce most of their content and at the very least direct it and be very close to it. Which they do an excellent job of, however it dosn't make business sense for them to produce own this and I don't see that changing. My problem with your POV is that the PR pro isn't good at producing content. Our job is to counsel messaging and build reputation.
-Marcus

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you for clarifying, Marcus. What I'm saying here is that content production and packaging will become increasingly important. And that's where there are holes in house to come up with the volume needed and where content marketing companies are ahead of the game.

PR pros will need to understand a client's business more deeply, if they indeed want to lead social media efforts on their behalf because messaging needs to be adapted to changing context. If that makes sense.

[Jason Keath]

Thank for the back and forth Valeria. I would agree with most of your points. Overall, everyone struggles with social media. The education gap as it were, where the vast demand smashes up against a much smaller resource set of practitioners that get it.

PR, in a broad sense, is not doing a tremendous job owning social media for brands (at the moment). Neither is advertising, digital, etc. The best of each segment is leading the way and the the best large PR agencies ARE doing some impressive things, including covering all the points you have outlined. The more I see the more I believe they are best equipped to take over social for the big brands.

That being said, yes, brands should manage things internally, but they won't. Some will, and likely more so than say managing their own advertising. But there will always be a market for the social media agency.

Thanks again for the conversation. Great stuff.

[Marcus Andrews]

Well I respect your opinion albeit I don't agree. As a PR person I will take it as a challenge to step up my game.

I think it's an important debate.
Thanks for making it public through your blog.
-Marcus

[Anol]

Great post Valeria. But to start with - can we rename PR to MR (Media Relations) first? It was never about public anyway. They use to have a good rolodex and 'pitch' to publications and now, they pitch to bloggers! Big change - eh?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Jason - agreed. As you know everyone can use additional resources and learning. Being that these are early days, it will be fascinating to see how things evolve. To me what would make most sense actually would be to have cross-disciplinary efforts internally supported by agency alliances. Knowing how territorial everyone is -- internal and external -- that will be a way in coming :) Thank you for stopping by.

@Marcus - it's a conversation everyone is having in their company and with their partners and agencies. Not one entity will be able to cover the breadth of business intelligence, customer support, and product development discoveries that this opportunity brings. I like the fact that by design it requires collaboration and integration. Stepping up the game is a way to go, together.

@Anol - indeed, when PR is about other publics it's usually called something else, like investor relations, or public affairs. The challenge is we all see the need for transformation, we struggle with how to fit this change in current billing models.

[David Armano]

I must not work at a PR firm. I can't talk about much of the work I'm involved with or have seen on the job, but it has very little to do with pitching anything.

That said, I think social media is WIDE open for the taking and it will include internal and external resources. Let the games begin.

[Paul Sutton]

Interesting opinion, Valeria, but I can't help but disagree with some of the points you've made.

I think you're right that PRs still currently 'pitch' to bloggers in the same way that they're used to pitching to journalists (things are getting better, but slowly), and that measurement is a major issue for PR agencies, driven largely by clients who insist on numbers and 'conventional' metrics.

But PR is not, by any means, having a hard time learning the clients' business. I'm sure there are some out there that dive in, but the majority take the time to learn all about the client and its business, and I can't see how anyone can do a good job if they don't.

I also disagree that PR is stuck with the media. For a long time this was the case, but the agencies I've worked for over the last few years build in work that goes above and beyond media relations. It targets influencers and consumers/clients in a direct manner - the media side is a by-product.

Having an internal team for social media is probably ideal, I'd agree. But many/most companies simply aren't set up for this either in terms of manpower, knowledge, skill or finance. Someone has to fill this space, and I believe Jason Keath is right in that PR agencies are ideally placed to do so.

[Stephanie Smirnov]

Valid points to be found here but difficult not to be distracted by the vast generalization of PR agencies and how we approach social media practice and blogger conversations. Incidentally, those of us who've been at this a long time understand it's ALWAYS been about relationships, understanding the audience of the journalist or editor with whom you're interacting...never about a canned pitch. Good PR people brought that understanding with them into the web 2.0 era coupled, hopefully, with an understanding of the technologies and platforms that fuel and accelerate conversations today.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Armano - collaboration will be the winning recipe and I cannot help but think we should all push harder to educate and develop better approaches. I'm with you on the ability to talk, which is not ideal at the moment. Hopefully, the results of your efforts and the efforts of pockets throughout the industry will help set a new pace.

@Paul - I don't see PR agencies pushing back on clients by leading the conversation on measurement. That's an area of opportunity. I've met exceptional PR folks who do an amazing job with learning and diving into the business. They are still the exception and the way everything moves today they're not enough. I love hearing that your work is broader than media and will make it a point to visit with you more often to glean insights. This is an area where many agencies are dragged kicking and screaming from the contraction of mainstream media. As an internal guy, I hope to have the knowledge or at least the insights to get things going although I admit that resources are an issue at the moment and social media is very resource intensive. To me it's everyone's job to understand the space and what they can do to contribute. Early days. Good to hear you're out there leading.

@Stephanie - there are plenty of vast generalizations about clients and corporation being made all over the place, too. I must be dreaming the dozens of ugly pitches I get every day... from people I've never even bumped into casually and with big name PR agencies in their signature. I digress. I agree with you. It is about good people and hopefully the agencies that employ them find ways to value them.

[Kellye Crane]

Interesting dialogue, but I think there's an important distinction: Jason's post refers to PR pros who "get it," and this post is talking about those who don't. There is a great schism in PR right now - in fact, it has probably always been there, but social media makes it more obvious.

Some PR pros are absolutely in the best position to lead an organization's social media efforts. In fact, when I speak/train on PR and social media we spend a great deal of time on your point #4. Many in public relations are embracing the new opportunities.

However, there are certainly throngs of people calling themselves PR pros who have all the downsides you mention. In many cases they actually know little to nothing about public relations - they are just spammers, plain and simple. Many of these folks have learned how to talk the talk, so it's incumbent upon the executive doing the hiring - internal or external - to dig deeper (what have they done, clients they've worked with, etc.).

As soon as people stop hiring these fake PR people, they will go away. Believe me, no one is looking forward to that day more than the true PR practitioners! PR pros can play a key role in leading social media efforts - just make sure to select them properly.

[DaveMurr]

Thank you providing this insight. I just attended a local PRSA meeting and it was interesting to see how the PR industry has been adapting or resisting some of the social web practices. Not coming from a traditional PR background I do sympathize, but I feel many are missing the point that you addressed poignantly, and that is SM is communication and if PR is communication then there really isn't that big of a discord. I agree that if PR professionals can move more away from the pitch mentality they will be successful.

[Peter I.]

I think most of this is true for most agencies but there are obvious exceptions to the rule (I recently had a top 5 interactive agency tell me that they're suddenly in the position of competing with PR agencies like Edelman because of SM successes). The problem with most PR agencies is that they have allowed themselves to become largely a vanity business and they've never been able to upsell their value compared to ad/interactive agencies. Ad equivalency and other flawed measurement models that have been the cornerstones of PR measurement have done a lot damage to the reputation of the industry. So while social media is a natural sweet spot for PR (they've always been relationship managers) it's yet another challenge for PR to show the value of it beyond mentions, weak sentiment analysis and ad equivalency. This problem has little to do with the nature of PR itself and more to do with how the entire PR industry has moved down the food chain over time.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Kellye - I reread Jason's post and I cannot find the place where he states he's talking about the agencies that get it. If you read my intro, I do two things in the set up of this post 1) I acknowledge his good points, 2) I state that generalizations can be dangerous. And yes, there are hacks in every single profession, not just PR. One more consideration. Those who are spending time in social media, those who do their due diligence are the same ones who are reading this post. It's still a select group. You point out that it's good to do your due diligence and business owners should do that.

@Dave - PR practitioners have a lot going for them. Social media requires new thinking, which is hard to do when you have your nose down to the grind day in day out. The danger I see is denial, doing more of the things that are working less and less.

@Peter - that story is not uncommon. What many of us in this thread are seeing is opportunity. Think about the amazing chance to lead in monitoring and measuring, content generation, etc. and yet it was new entrants who created the space. What also gets me is that it takes a post about failing to discuss it when I write mostly positive posts that go unnoticed.

[Elise Brown]

Working with a new client recently prompted me to explore many blogs, but the relationship and credibility building with them was thwarted by the client dropping PR after 90 days. Clients need to be counseled more thoroughly about approaching social media, as most still seem to think one simply "drops" a press release and immediately gets "coverage."

[Juliana Crispo]

Valeria, I can't agree with you more about handling social media in house. A lot of companies just want to pass it off to an agency. These are 4 great points and even if you could teach an old dog new tricks, it's not going to eliminate the fact that companies can get a lot more out of their efforts on social media going from the inside out. That's my 2 cents.

[BuzzStream]

Agreed on that PR should be handled in-house. Also agreed that it is about relationship. Yes, the "pitch" may be dead or it may have shifted into an "introduction". How do we introduce ourselves into a conversation? How do we turn those conversations into relationships?

We have to know what we are talking about. This takes time, even when done in-house. We have to track these relationships over time and measure their influence depending on category or vertical. You can't be introduced to someone new and ask to borrow $20. The same can be said for contemporary PR. We need to hang out with people for a while before we go for the ask.