Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has a post today about the practice of PR in today's blog-intensive world. Basically he posits that PR professionals are not keeping up with nor understanding how to work with bloggers and new media, and are consequently delivering less and less value to their clients. The whole post is worth reading.
I actually agree with Mike's overall premise here--the world of PR IS changing in many, many ways due to the underlying, fundamental changes in the media world. It's not just the emergence of the blogging community that keeps today's PR pros on their toes, but a whole raft of additional changes:
----the emergence of the 24 hour news cycle
----gross fragmentation in media outlets
----ongoing decline in traditional print outlets, print and magazines
----new, visual communications tools
All of these very fundamental changes have occurred over the past few years, mostly due to the anytime, anywhere communications made possible by the Internet. It's no wonder that even the most conscientious PR professional is going to have a hard time keeping up with all of it.
And, still have time to do a good job servicing clients, and blogging! :)
But, despite all this change, and something that Arrington misses totally in his post, is that some things have not changed and probably never will. And, it is this value-add that clients need most from their PR professionals.
PR still is, and always will be, a relationship-based business. It's who you know, what you can tell them, and how you foster those relationships on an ongoing basis that's important. Most CEO's do not have time to manage all the media relationships and still run their companies. That's why they hire good, well-connected PR professionals to help them out with this.
I actually agree with Mike's overall premise here--the world of PR IS changing in many, many ways due to the underlying, fundamental changes in the media world. It's not just the emergence of the blogging community that keeps today's PR pros on their toes, but a whole raft of additional changes:
----the emergence of the 24 hour news cycle
----gross fragmentation in media outlets
----ongoing decline in traditional print outlets, print and magazines
----new, visual communications tools
All of these very fundamental changes have occurred over the past few years, mostly due to the anytime, anywhere communications made possible by the Internet. It's no wonder that even the most conscientious PR professional is going to have a hard time keeping up with all of it.
And, still have time to do a good job servicing clients, and blogging! :)
But, despite all this change, and something that Arrington misses totally in his post, is that some things have not changed and probably never will. And, it is this value-add that clients need most from their PR professionals.
PR still is, and always will be, a relationship-based business. It's who you know, what you can tell them, and how you foster those relationships on an ongoing basis that's important. Most CEO's do not have time to manage all the media relationships and still run their companies. That's why they hire good, well-connected PR professionals to help them out with this.
More on this important topic later...
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