Public Relations, in the typical sense, is dead. This kind of statement makes many folks, particularly practitioners, extremely nervous. It shouldn't. Most people who've been staying abreast of the trends during the last one or two years already "sort of" knew this, but let's put it out there in concrete terms. It is time to mourn the passing and celebrate the future.
The future is a still-being-defined conglomeration of public relations, digital strategy, media relations, selling and what we're going to call "direct engagement," which incorporates everything from formal meetings to working sessions to webinars. My associates and I've been working diligently on the right way to conceptualize this new trend we call Connected Communications.
Think how you are reading this now. The majority are likely viewing on a desktop computer screen while an increasing quantity of folks are reading on a mobile or keyboard-less device. A couple of others may print out this text and share it. It's a kind of media consumption that was experimental one or two years back and non-existent when my firm, Stern + Associates, opened its doors 25 years back.
We have all heard the song-and-dance about new media, so I am not going to jump into it here. Slogans like "the world is changing" are overused. The reality is that the bulk of these changes have simply impacted the syndication of a good message and the numerous audiences it can reach. When it comes to your company, the actual message is still king.
So if the message is king, then why am I claiming that PR is dead? Isn't the point of PR? In most instances, yes, but it is only a little sliver of a firm's external messaging. Due to this new arena of info sharing and audience fragmentation, it's critical that the messaging in advertising, media (in a PR domain), product packaging, external and internal memos, and so on be consistent. Many corporations are still siloed, with marketing, media relations and sales middle management rarely speaking to one another, especially when it comes to coordinating and collaborating. All of these different areas are now indeed connected. The message must be consistent from beginning to end.
Let's take a look at how your message could be consumed: An advertising message can prompt someone to do a Google search, which finds your product because your web site was correctly SEO-optimized and PR releases helped you get and sustain that ranking. That person signs up for a webinar employing the same language found in the ad but to a bigger depth, and then shares the observations with a co-worker. At the end of the day, a talk breaks out in the boardroom and someone says, "I remember hearing about that issue in company X's webinar. Maybe we should give them a call. This is how today's arena of media consumption works. It does not always happen in this order; in truth every interaction is unique, like a snowflake among snowflakes. Any one of these folk might have seen your Chief Executive Officer on the "Today" show first, or found you online. They might have read an article that reviews your company in Forbes or met one of your corporate management on a train. All these scenarios are possible , and that is the reason why it's critical that the messaging you use is consistent among everyone and each channel. Everything and everybody appears to be connected, and is the reason why we found the necessity to create Connected Communications, an approach that fuses the very best of traditional media, direct engagement, marketing and digital methods into quantifiable payoffs for your business aims.
So if you're a PR pro reading this, give your marketing person a ring. If you're a communications person, connect to your strategy person. If you're a Manager reading this, then feel free to call a meeting with your executives to guarantee a concrete, continuous message is being used across the company. Don't fret if you do not understand how to start: just start. If you need some help, you can reach out to us at info@sternassociates.com and we will get started together.
The future is a still-being-defined conglomeration of public relations, digital strategy, media relations, selling and what we're going to call "direct engagement," which incorporates everything from formal meetings to working sessions to webinars. My associates and I've been working diligently on the right way to conceptualize this new trend we call Connected Communications.
Think how you are reading this now. The majority are likely viewing on a desktop computer screen while an increasing quantity of folks are reading on a mobile or keyboard-less device. A couple of others may print out this text and share it. It's a kind of media consumption that was experimental one or two years back and non-existent when my firm, Stern + Associates, opened its doors 25 years back.
We have all heard the song-and-dance about new media, so I am not going to jump into it here. Slogans like "the world is changing" are overused. The reality is that the bulk of these changes have simply impacted the syndication of a good message and the numerous audiences it can reach. When it comes to your company, the actual message is still king.
So if the message is king, then why am I claiming that PR is dead? Isn't the point of PR? In most instances, yes, but it is only a little sliver of a firm's external messaging. Due to this new arena of info sharing and audience fragmentation, it's critical that the messaging in advertising, media (in a PR domain), product packaging, external and internal memos, and so on be consistent. Many corporations are still siloed, with marketing, media relations and sales middle management rarely speaking to one another, especially when it comes to coordinating and collaborating. All of these different areas are now indeed connected. The message must be consistent from beginning to end.
Let's take a look at how your message could be consumed: An advertising message can prompt someone to do a Google search, which finds your product because your web site was correctly SEO-optimized and PR releases helped you get and sustain that ranking. That person signs up for a webinar employing the same language found in the ad but to a bigger depth, and then shares the observations with a co-worker. At the end of the day, a talk breaks out in the boardroom and someone says, "I remember hearing about that issue in company X's webinar. Maybe we should give them a call. This is how today's arena of media consumption works. It does not always happen in this order; in truth every interaction is unique, like a snowflake among snowflakes. Any one of these folk might have seen your Chief Executive Officer on the "Today" show first, or found you online. They might have read an article that reviews your company in Forbes or met one of your corporate management on a train. All these scenarios are possible , and that is the reason why it's critical that the messaging you use is consistent among everyone and each channel. Everything and everybody appears to be connected, and is the reason why we found the necessity to create Connected Communications, an approach that fuses the very best of traditional media, direct engagement, marketing and digital methods into quantifiable payoffs for your business aims.
So if you're a PR pro reading this, give your marketing person a ring. If you're a communications person, connect to your strategy person. If you're a Manager reading this, then feel free to call a meeting with your executives to guarantee a concrete, continuous message is being used across the company. Don't fret if you do not understand how to start: just start. If you need some help, you can reach out to us at info@sternassociates.com and we will get started together.
About the Author:
Jim Nichols is VP - Digital at Stern + Associates. A PR, Marketing & Digital Strategy firm that uses a Connected Communications approach that blends the absolute best of typical media, marketing and digital strategy and direct engagements into quantifiable payoffs.
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