As we move into the next phase of social communication online the idea of outsourcing your social media activity to a PR agency makes less and less sense.
Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do. Cluetrain Manifesto
So where does PR fit into this scenario?
An important part of social media success depends on how well you have listened to your audience. Do you know what their concerns and interests are? Do you have a content strategy that speaks to the needs of your community? Are you telling stories that resonate with people who might be customers? PR is good at doing those parts of the program. We can strategize and advise. We can find influencers and develop the content strategy. We can formulate and craft interesting pieces of content.
We know that the most powerful influencing factor today is a recommendation from ‘someone just like me.” Dell’s campaign about the interesting entrepreneurs who use Dell products is a perfect case in point. It’s an integrated campaign that makes great use of social media. PR was very involved with picking the people to feature and crafting the stories.
Another good example occurred all of two years ago – clever PR content created $1million in leads for a downtown condo development in Kansas City. They profiled current buyers at the Metropolitan and created three human interest stories about the buyers that attracted like minded people.
According to the social media and PR report from EConsultancy.com only 13% of companies are ‘very satisfied’ with the social media services they get from their PR agency.
We need to figure out where we fit in the mix and do what we do well.
We can create the branded content that will pique the interest of the right people. Then it’s over to the company or organization to foster the relationships. People don’t want to speak to the PR agency. They want to speak to the actual people at the company.
“Learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about “listening to customers.” They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.” Cluetrain Manifesto.
