image credit Love in a cold climate… Valentine’s Day message in the snow. Photograph: Anil Dayal/AP www.guardian.co.uk/…/feb/14/sayitwithpoetry
Following our recent .. ahem ‘award win’ for best use of social media we’ve been on a whirlwind tour of top 100 UK brands in Britain talking to them about the use of social media for their organisations. During these visits a familiar feeling came over me which will give away my age a little here. So first a little diversion before I get back to the point of the title of this blog.
When I started out in digital we used to have to persuade companies that they should get a website, they’d read the news, heard the hype, everyone was telling them to get one so they were listening.. sort of. After websites it was (and still is to a degree) the importance of SEO, now its social media. Meeting clients we can see that they are responding to the ‘hype’ around social media, some of them can also remember the process I’ve just listed so are resigned to the ‘fact’ that they should probably engage with this, after all the ‘hype’ was right about the website and was right about SEO. It’s a bit more straight forward because most clients have a facebook account whereas they didn’t have a website.. but still I can see the ‘fear’ on their faces and in most cases what can be best described as a grudging acceptance that they are going to have to get their heads around another complex digital concept and technology shift.
.. anyway back to the title..
The other day I was asked a direct question by a UK based car manufacturer, where in their organisation we felt that ‘social media’ should fit “ is it PR or marketing?” it’s a simple enough question right? And the answer is simple enough too but the implications are actually pretty far reaching I think (btw the answer is both, it sits across both) and poses a significant challenge for agencies wishing to offer social media campaign management to their clients.
Social media campaigns are challenging because they touch on so many parts of the Marcomms Mix and influence or rely upon so many different technologies. It occurred to me that both digital and PR agencies are seeking to claim this space as our own.. but look at each other with cynicism about the others ability to offer the best solution.
In a nut shell, those of us in digital look at PR agencies and are dubious about their grasp of the technology, particularly the overlap with SEO, I think we are also cynical about whether PR agencies really get ‘it’. By this I mean that PR historically has been based around pushing messages whereas Social Media is about conversations, we’d argue that we understand the medium in which these conversations happen ‘properly’ and therefore are better placed to advise upon their use. Finally we’d tag on points about measurability etc and consider the argument won.
In retort I get the impression that PR agencies look at the importance of social media to PR and crisis management and are cynical about our ability to produce the ‘right’ messages and rightly I think they’d be highly dubious about our media relations skills when advising a client upon crisis management issues. There are probably other points to add to this so I’ll extend an open invitation to PR’s to get stuck here on the comments.
Over the last 10 years I’ve had many causes to work closely with my clients media & marketing agencies, I’ve received briefs instigated by PR agencies but so far have had little need for the type of regular communication or even partnerships that I have enjoyed and still enjoy with my clients Media/Marketing agencies. BUT I sense this is changing.. looking at my followers on twitter and those I follow there are a lot of PR agencies engaging and rightly so.. looking at the social media campaigns we are running and being completely honest I increasingly yearn for a stronger basis in traditional PR and see some real opportunities here for us with our clients. From here it isn’t a huge leap of logic to see why finally I am finding myself thinking about PR agencies and my lack of strong relationships with you.. could it be that social media has finally brought us together?
If you’re a PR/PR agency and you are reading this I’d like to hear your thoughts I can’t help feeling that we could work well together here and that through collaboration offer a really solid service to our clients.. what do you think?
Totally agree really Alex. I think that on a personal level SEO and PR attract (nowadays) the same sorts of people – gregarian marketeers who enjoy building relationships and know how to leverage them for the good of their clients.
The gap (to me) definitely is in the approach – PR is traditionally about talking at people, social media is about talking with them. Can PR agencies make this leap? To having people answer their brand message back?
I’m seeing a purging of the PR industry where the great agencies can and do and the dinosaurs just stand watching that social media meteor as it looms ever larger in the marketing sky.
I agree with this in principal, unfortunately I just haven’t seen enough PR agencies rising to the challenge of online communication. Where digital agencies have had to become proficient in a number of disciplines to fill the gaps (what is a company blog if not PR) I have most often seen PR agencies trying to push the message online, in a very offline way.
There are some notable exceptions to this, but when I speak to a PR agency and they tell me that they never thought of changing how they write a press release for online consumption, it suggests to me that many PR agencies have a long way to go.
I think the future of online marketing is in integrated digital comms, but for this to happen the PR community needs to pull it’s finger out a little quicker before digital agencies simply retrain and step into the breach.
I personally haven’t had much experience with PR agencies, but I do have experience with social media. From my ignorant point-of-view, I would say that PR agencies pretty much have to get in on the social media scene. In this day and age I am surprised that they are still resorting to traditional tactics. That’s insane! This can be likened to a client only wanting to run TV and print ads and forget a website altogether (which used to be the case when I started out in traditional advertsing not so long ago).
I mean, anything damaging to a client’s rep will most likely happen online, and having a system in place to deal with complaints or negative comments is imperative. In a sense, online reputation management, PR agencies and social media are one and the same.
“before digital agencies simply retrain and step into the breach”
Sounds like some are well on the way already!
@Steph yeah definitely, we’ve come up against resistance both within companies and in PR agencies but there more they resist, the harder it’s going to be to catch up…
@steph totally agree.. PR agencies need to be paying attention.. my question I guess is should digital agencies be looking to partner with PR agencies or perhaps take PR’s in house? if you were a client would you expect to turn to your digital or PR agency?
Crikey! Which PR agencies have you lot been dealing with?
It’s easy for digital agencies to declare that PR agencies don’t “get” social media and vice versa; I sit squarely in the middle (online PR) and get to see the good and the gory coming from both sides. All too often, in my experience, both sides possess different halves of the same jigsaw.
When you boil traditional PR down to its essence, it is about building relationships (with influencers, with consumers etc.) – skills that transfer very well. However it is true that in the main, traditional PR agencies have been slow to engage with online & social media. On the other hand, you get digital agencies claiming to offer “online PR” – and it turns out to be a solitary “press release”, beautifully optimised but badly written, bunged up on PR Web. Risible. Then there are the areas in which poor practice and room for improvement abounds – on both sides. Piss-poor attempts at “blogger outreach” and the proliferation of half-baked, corporate Twitter accounts are examples of these.
For me (and Tinderbox Media’s clients), the integrated approach is the way to go. We offer offline PR, online PR (includes social media and ORM) and SEO copywriting. Alex, you write of your yearning for a “stronger basis in traditional PR” and say that you see some opportunities for your clients. I think you are bang on here. Here is an example from my own recent experience: recently working with a client on a topical issue, secured appearance on a popular national radio programme. The appearance prompted two things: a post on the client’s blog, and a v. nice inbound link. It is a blog that reaps the benefits of SEO – and which (thanks to offline PR efforts) is read by key journalists, amongst others. As a result the post was picked up by other bloggers… and also by a top Sunday broadsheet…
Offline & online PR can bounce off one another brilliantly and perhaps, if PR agencies and/or digital agencies catch on to this, we’ll begin seeing more of what I just described above. Interesting times ahead.
@Alex that would depend on whether I was in comms (in which case I might automatically turn to my PR agency) or marketing (in which case my digital agency might seem like the logical choice). I think it’s important to remember that this is also an internal battle for some companies, where e-commerce and comms are very seperate, internally clients don’t always know who should deal with this either.
I’ve worked with 2 PR agencies who I believe have really started to “get” social media and how to maximise SEO benefits from releases they do on behalf of mutual clients – and have become much more integrated with the processes of releases they put out, to the stage where I usually don’t have to make any changes to what they are doing, because they have learned from what we have done in the past.
I have however worked with a few more that no matter what “education” I give them they are still (3 years down the line) don’t get SEO or Social Media and some of the more obvious things, let alone any of the more subtle nuances.
Some of them are evolving and doing what is necessary to move into the digital space, some of them seem to be struggling to keep up
Back when I used to work in the Betting Industry we had a fantastic in-house PR team. Now whilst they didn’t really ‘get’ online; in fairness, back then I don’t think that anyone in the organisation did.
They were about as far removed from the crusty old press release peddling PR’s you’ve referred to. They had really good personal relationships with key members of the press and TV; and it was these relationships that got us coverage. They certainly weren’t about broadcasting a message, they took part in the conversation.
I think that whilst some PR agencies are some way off of the pace, there are lots of in-house and agency PRs who do understand the importance of ‘conversation’. Conversation and consumer engagement (yuck! marketing doublespeak) long predate social media.
I’d suggest that there are ‘good’ and ahem ‘not so good’ PR agencies, just like there are ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ SEO agencies
Should digital agencies team up with PR’s? Definitely. I think it would allow everyone to play to their strengths. Excellent post.
@Karyn great reply.. and i totally agree.. though I have to say you are probably the 1st PR I’ve heard speak with such clarity on the interplay between online PR, offline PR , SEO and social media.. I hope you represent where PR’s are headed.. we should talk further on this and integrated offering..?
@Peter good to hear PR’s taking into account the SEO link building oportunities in a press release but I’m looking for a bit more than this.. surely working closely with PR’s we could produce great content/link bait and with PR assistance get really good coverage.. much better that that gained through simple press release..?
@hanna good points, totally agree.. putting the ‘bad’ SEO’s & PR’s aside for a monent.. who should start the process.. is it the clients responsibility to get theor PR/Digital agency working together or should we (digital/PR agencies) be looking to create integrated offerings fronted by one another and proposed to our clients?
@Alex The 2 PR Agencies I refer to, we work very closely with, not only with link building from Press Releases, but also integrating a strategy for Social Media promotion as well, working closely with us performing the SEO work – its not a “fully integrated” package yet, but its something that I am working on.
I think lots of PR companies have come a long way in the few years that I have been working in the digital space, though there is obviously still some way to go yet to reach what you are talking about here – there is no reason why this can’t happen in the future though
@Alex – It’s in the client’s interest to get their agencies working together (and indeed I think many already do). I’ve always really liked the idea of a truly integrated agency – media buyers, creatives, fulfillment houses, telemarketing, social media, market research, PR, SEO, PPC (I could go on forever) all under one roof. If I was running an agency, that’s definitely what I’d look to build.
Alex; great post … I like the element of contention but also the offer to engage … Some great commentary too …..
I believe that client side confusion is also compounded by ‘if I spend, what do I get?’ Particularly as social media is ‘more spend’! Social media is less tangible than SEO, or at least less directly tangible. Also, traditional PR is well understood whereas Social media is an emerging dynamic on brand, image and reputation management. I also think that the same learning curve relating to ‘pull’ versus ‘push’ is associated with the new technologies and techniques emerging via the evolving power of the internet. ‘Push’ is well understood, but ‘Pull’ is ‘realtively’ new (and continuously evolving) and also somewhat invisible; albeit SEO analytics are now assisting with both performance management and decision making.
Client scepticism therefore needs to be educated and I agree totally Alex, engagement with traditional PR experts is vital if real campaign management is going to be maximised in both efficiency and effectiveness.
One further observation is that gestation periods of impact via social media campaigns further exacerbate the issues of engagement. On the one hand, if a client doesn’t engage it takes time for negative impact to take effect (on revenue and profit) and on the other hand it can be difficult to directly relate RoI to the specific social media activity; particularly when it is most often combined with SEO. This is an agency conundrum to solve!
However, thinking logically and with traditional PR dynamics in mind, it makes absolute sense that social media, for specific groups of enterprises, is needed and works well.
The key then is to remove the fear of engagement from the client and present a cogent and integrated package for both digial and traditional campaigns ……. which is what I believe you are proposing?
The bottom line is that the Internet is here and getting more powerful and also transferring the power to the consumer away from the supplier. Those who hesitate will lose out to those who engage and embrace. Thats a simple dynamic!