PR Agencies Continue to Embrace New Social Media
Recently, Laura Hall, the vice president of public relations at Off Madison Ave, was chosen to lead an international panel at the annual Worldcom Group Public Relations conference in Bangkok, Thailand. The panel addressed the impact of new media on public relations, and the merging of interactive and traditional public relations to the benefit of clients. Worldcom, the largest consortium of independently owned public relations counseling firms, placed an emphasis at the conference on discussing the new media trends facing the industry, thus setting a new foundation of understanding of the latest applications for its network of partners.
While public relations agencies have long held dear the traditional strategies and tactics that have helped shape the communications plans for their clients, the times are indeed changing. Around the world, public relations practitioners are rapidly incorporating new media tools and seeking ways to enhance their clients’ existing programs pro-actively and in collaboration with other services, especially online.
Hall conducted a survey of more than 100 global Worldcom agency partners prior to the conference, and a few notable findings for the industry surfaced about the impacts of new media technology:
- 46 percent of partners believe social media will become more of the standard and used equally as much as traditional public relations practices
- 34 percent monitor social networking Web sites
- 61 percent post blogs for clients, while 29 percent indicated that blogs are impacting the measurement of public relations
- 66 percent optimize press releases for key word search, while 60 percent use email campaigns
For more information about the Worldcom PR new media survey, view our PowerPoint presentation.
The panel featured participants from the United States, Canada, Latin American, India, the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia, Hungary and Australia and emphasized the importance of agency professionals taking heed to the surge in effectiveness and popularity of social media such as blogs, podcasts, video placements on YouTube and profiles on Wikipedia. All these new forums have shown a distinct ability to be an integral component of a communications plan while raising market awareness for clients.
As more agencies around the world are researching and executing innovative ways to complement their clients’ business objectives with new social media tools and interactive marketing campaigns, it is evident that the traditional methods of delivering services and results will become outdated if not supported with online strategies. The widespread participation, survey results and shared case studies that characterized the Worldcom new media panel revealed that agencies possess an appetite to learn more about the opportunities that exist, while assessing how to better integrate social media tools to expand the boundaries of what public relations entails.
April 9th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Is it really social media if you’re having your PR firm handle the posts on your blog? Something about that doesn’t seem quite right to me.
Obviously, they should be consulting, helping set it up, assisting with promotion, etc. — but actually handling the posts?
The fact that 61 percent reported doing this for their clients seems a bit disturbing to me.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Granted, a blog is supposed to not only reflect the company’s core message, but invite other users and bloggers into a conversation as well.
I think the larger point is that social media in general and blogs in particular are becoming an important presence in public relations.
After all, some companies may not have the time, resources, know-how, or even the writing ability to administer a blog. Even so, companies still want/need the benefits that come from blogging. Therefore, whether we like it or not, the art of blogging has also become a PR commodity.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:32 am
I have to agree with James; I have been blogging for more than four years now, and advising clients for the past two years on corporate blogging. If a client cannot commit the time to blogging on a corporate blog, there are PLENTY of other ways to be engaged in social media and becoming part of the community.
Ghost written blogs are typically verboten in the blogosphere, and tend to be called out.