Blog
06.17
Social Media: R.I.P. for P.R.?
“You twits out there are the death knell of public relations!”
At least, that’s becoming a talking point used for giggles and to make others in this business sweat a little on the ride home.
It’s no secret social media is slightly popular.
It seems every athlete, entertainer and celebrity tweet and friend people just to pad their numbers online. Every media outlet has an account (consult your local directories for more information) and everyone is a follower of something on the Intertube.
So, this argument was bound to happen – Web 2.0 Journal columnist Fuat Kircaali is now saying the PR business will be extinct thanks to social media.
“In our estimation, roughly 70 percent of today's PR firms with their traditional public relations and communications business structures will not survive the fast-approaching social media avalanche,” he wrote. “The remaining 30 percent that need to reinvent their position real fast in their newly morphed industry will prosper, compared to where they were and what they were doing before.”
If you mean the 70 percent who don’t have access to the Internet, then I would agree. Otherwise, dude please!
The premise of public relations is found in the inherent foundation of social media – building relationships.
If there is a director with an agency in this lovely business that doesn’t understand that simple fact, perhaps I could recommend a career as a mime or one of those guys in lab coats who talk to animals all day, because “forming relationships” is probably not your strong suit.
Never fear because I’m in good company.
Harold Burson, an irrefutable legend in this business – and former by-proxy mentor of mine – said, “What nonsense!”
Besides who are the ones really teaching others about pitching social media types, optimizing releases and forming relationships (there’s that word again) with bloggers? Yeah, that would be we soon-to-be-snuffed-out, archaic flacks in public relations.
It’s not extinction, Fuat. It’s more like evolution. At least that’s how we see it.
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