it's the time for PR to assert its ownership of online communications

It always fascinates me the amount of passion for change that is in the air when you get a small group of knowledgeable communications professionals talking about the future of PR in the “new media” landscape. Thanks to the CIPR and AMEC member company Metrica for sponsoring the latest discussion opportunity.

It served for me as one of those filtering processes where I saw clarity like this:

·                PR owns the communications message so it would be logical it should also own the new channel of digital communications/new media/social media or whatever it is called.

·                So why isn’t PR taking this leadership opportunity?

·                It’s time that a group of skilled communicators worldwide came up with a descriptor that would enable us to banish the often confusing tags of new media/social media, online media that serve to muddy the real job at hand, which is to:

·                Educate the client community of this exciting new challenge as a PR channel and opportunity and demonstrate to brand managers, in particular, what they do not realise is being said in online conversations about their brand.

·                PR teams need to organise themselves to sell the benefits of online communications and how it forms a valuable part of a multi channel programme before the sales promotion and advertising agencies create a new business to replace the business they have already lost.

·                Evaluation agencies should be the PR agency’s partner in the education process, able to demonstrate to clients that digital communications can be measured.

 

It’s worth saying that the point about the need for the client community to be convinced of the “new” future that is digital communications is a big one. Colin Farrington, the CIPR Director General, said he was constantly surprised at the lack of a digital element in award entries he had seen. Ditto from me. I have also just reviewed a PR RFP for a major multinational recently which although perhaps extreme as an example, again showed that many clients are still in the comfort zone of “traditional media”, even though newspaper circulations worldwide are in decline because there was nothing in the scope for online at all.

Comments

[Chris Reed]

Hi there Barry - good to meet you yesterday, and I like your write up of the session.

I thought it was very good of those fine people at Metrica and CIPR to get a few of us together and give us space and time to think (and talk) about measurement going forward. No instant solutions - but no doubt some really good food for thought going forward.

Look forward to seeing you again soon

[Barry Hurd]

I especially feel your last point is critical:

"Evaluation agencies should be the PR agency’s partner in the education process, able to demonstrate to clients that digital communications can be measured."

The new media realm brings of number of measurement and metrics that can detail how it fits into the communications strategy. PR groups that understand the methods of quantifying the information will also find that those same measurement tools often provide additional value to real world components.