Public Relations in the Age of Social Media

In some social media circles, there is an inclination to lecture public relations experts on the social media revolution.  Public relations professionals are told that if they don’t learn the new rules they’ll be cast aside.  I certainly believe that social media represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between companies and their consumers, and that public relations agencies will need to adapt accordingly, but in many ways I think this makes the skills of PR pros even more important.  After all, when few people have the tools to reach an audience, you don’t have to be very good at crafting your message as long as you’re one of them; but when everybody has the tools to reach an audience, you have to be very good at connecting if you want to stand out.

Here are some of the public relations skills that are transferable, if not more desirable, in a social media society:

Identifying Audiences: The first task of any public relations agency has been to identify the target audience for a product or service.  Social media increases the need for proper targeting.  As it lowers the barrier of entry for marketing by reducing costs, more small businesses will get into the game.  In the past, targeting has been based largely on demographics: age, location, income level, etc.  With the rise of social media, people are using the internet to volunteer more information about themselves than ever before.  You no longer need to guess if somebody is into sports cars based on their age and gender; we know because they tell us in their Facebook profile.  So the method of identifying audiences will change as we focus more on keywords in profiles and conversations and less on demographic data, but the importance of being able to identify an audience will not change.

Identifying Outlets: Once the audience has been identified, a public relations agency must decide which mediums are the best way to reach that audience.  Again, the specifics may change, but not the process itself.  In the future, the choice may be between Facebook and LinkedIn instead of radio or television, but the ability to critically examine different media outlets and craft a proper campaign will still be of fundamental importance.

Crafting a Message: Everybody loves a good story, and great public relations professionals are great storytellers.  At its core, public relations is about crafting a narrative.  It’s the difference between a political candidate who’s “a recovering drug addict” or a “human who has triumphed over great adversity.”  Heroes and villains must be cast, a conflict must be created and the audience must be given somebody to root for.  Social media may make it possible for anybody to publish, but that doesn’t make everybody a good storyteller.

Writing: In a world where everybody can write, great writing skills become a key way to distinguish yourself.   The ability to write a great headline has never been more important than in the age of the 140-character Twitter limit.  (I read a lot of blogs; I don’t read a lot of good headlines.)  As writing moves from the printed page to the screen, where people are far more apt to scan, a mastery of word economy reigns supreme.  Likewise, language is key.  The rise of search engine optimization, keyword generation and tagging makes the ability to choose the correct word of fundamental importance.

Creating Creative: As the rise of user-generated content crowds cyberspace, it becomes harder and harder to stand out.  Coming up with the compelling creative pieces to support your message becomes important.  However, traditional public relations thinking may get turned on its head here.  In the past, production values mattered.  Your commercials needed a shiny, glossy look to attract attention.  No longer.  (Fanscape CEO Larry Weintraub recently blogged about the fact that his kids were more interested in grainy Lego Star Wars videos on YouTube than in the actual Star Wars movies.)  Yet the ability to create creative, to A-B test that creative and to measure the ability to reach an audience will continue to be important.  Again, the specific methodology will change, and public relations agencies will need to adapt, but the fundamental thinking that underlies the process will not.

Influencing Influencers: In many ways, public relations professionals are lobbyists.  Their job is to influence the opinions of key people, precisely because those people influence others.  Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I had dinner at Los Andes, a new Bolivian restaurant.  One of the owners told us that a recent positive review in The Providence Journal by Food Editor Gail Ciampa drove an enormous amount of traffic into his establishment.  The Providence Journal is a dying paper that loses more advertisers and more money every day.  And yet, the rise of the social media has, in many ways, made Gail Ciampa more influential because she can now reach even more people.  I don’t subscribe to any newspapers, but I read content from more newspapers than ever before.  I didn’t pay for The New York Times before the internet, and I certainly don’t pay for it now.  The difference is that I didn’t read The New York Times before the internet, and I read it every day now.

Why does Gail Ciampa still have the ability to drive dozens of people to a tiny restaurant if her paper is on the brink of extinction?  Because she has built a relationship with her readers over many many years.  People trust her opinion when it comes to dining.  There will always be people we trust as authorities on particular subjects.  Just because social media makes it is easier to access everybody’s opinion does not mean that we suddenly give equal weight to everybody’s opinion.  The ability to identify and influence these authorities, which has long been the providence of public relations, will continue to be important.  In the future, the key influencers may be bloggers or tweeters instead of journalists and cable television pundits, but they will still exist and public relations agencies will continue to maintain relationships with these people.  As I’ve said before, social media facilitates relationships, it does not replace relationships.  The job of a great public relations agency is to have great relationships, which will stay the same with the rise of social media.

Technological evolution always brings about mindset shifts.  It’s been argued that Gutenberg’s printing press paved the way for democracy.  But these technological shifts don’t invalidate the skills and experience of entire classes of workers overnight.  It doesn’t not follow that just because everybody now has the ability to market, everybody is now good at marketing.  In fact, in a world where everybody has the tools to do what you do, the ability to be the best with those tools in more important than ever.