“I’m Just the PR Person”
Public Relations has often been portrayed as “the power behind the throne.” The voice that whispers sage counsel to those in leadership positions.
In part this makes sense: “power” in the raw sense depends on the willingness of underlings to obey their marching orders. Revolutions occur when the masses (including employees, Boards of Directors, etc.) decide that their leaders are incompetent or untrustworthy.
Thus, “public relations” is a way to ensure that powerful forces bend to the will of the people … or at least come across that way!
But as the era of socialized communications dawns, it’s no longer acceptable for PR pros to shrug their way out of troubling situations with the lame excuse that, “I’m just the PR person.”
We’re out in the open. The advice of the “grand vizier” is no longer a whisper but is essentially shouted with a bullhorn. Journalists and bloggers will publish our pitches, our names, our mistakes, without hesitation. Our case studies are critiqued in public. Our agency/client affiliations are increasingly hard to keep under wraps … which means that every client communications flap now reflects on the PR counsel, fairly or not.
Embrace this, fellow PR professional. Do not despair! We’re actually pretty darned smart. There may be some clueless flacks among us, but let’s be honest: there are a fair number of clueless people in all corporate job functions. In the main, we know our stuff; it is okay if the world knows and appreciates this, so long as the majority of the benefits acccrue to our clients.
You’re not “just” the PR person, not anymore. More and more, you are the proud & public standard-bearer for the brands you serve, even while working agency-side. Knowing this, yes, you must train harder. Then you can jump fearlessly into the sunlight of Social Media.
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You speak the truth. And we have seen that with Ketchum recently. A friend of mine who has personal ties had a small discussion about that blunder with me they other day.
Socialization is a “power” equalizer, but a “power” of its own that PR professional have to contend with, but also use effectively.
Heck, even before social media, this was all true! As a former PR agency staffer I spent a lot of time getting up to speed quickly on several brands, products and companies. I had to be conversant on everything from the competition to adjacent markets so I could talk to the media. All that knowledge was also used to counsel clients (“sage counsel”), helping them make important business decisions with the media and public’s likely reaction in mind. PR isn’t just out-bound communications, it also takes information back into the organization. Anyone who dismisses PR (then and now) isn’t taking advantage of a huge amount of knowledge and expertise available inherent in the function.
I can’t say that I know of any practitioner who knows their craft claiming “I’m only the PR person”. I’m seeing a dominant coalition across the blogosphere and a fierce firefight of opinion by self-appointed sages being blasted across Twitter in a noise of social media specialism.
I’m watching and noting as opposed to ‘performing’ to make rank and all the while I keep reminding myself of the CIPR definition – just to keep it real.
“Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics”.
Great advice. And even though social media has the power to cause problems, like having that bad pitch published for all to see, it also offers a great opportunity to engage in a conversation with others.
Way to go Todd!
There is still a problem however in where the social media ’sits’ – that is, do all PR people learn how to use all social media, or just a core team, or somewhere in-between?
I’m sorry, did I say problem? I meant opportunity!
Twitter Comment
Nice reminder from @tdefren – PR people need to take responsibility and own the profession – [link to post]
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This post reminded me of a story my boss shared. When he was a green PR pro years ago, before the rise of social media, he called a radio station to pitch a client’s new product. He got right through to the personalities (also the news editors), who talked to him for a very long time and asked a lot of questions about said client’s new product. At the end of his pitch/conversation, the radio personalities clicked a button to turn off their recording devices.
My boss had just given an interview about his client’s product.
Yep. He freaked out. He also caught a lot of flak for it from his agency. However, he survived. More importantly, he knew enough about his client’s services to play a bigger role than “just the PR guy.”
While this is an extreme circumstance, it’s a great example why we should intimately understand our client’s businesses, especially in the Web 2.0 world. That way, if we ever find ourselves all of a sudden “being interviewed,” we can truly act as a brand ambassador.
using the excuse “i’m just the PR person” aggravates me to no end. there are still many people out there who perceive PR to be a trivial profession. using that phrase serves only to justify their thinking.
we are, after all, “the power behind the throne,” as it were. certainly not a trivial position. act accordingly.
This is (or should be) true of whether the PR professional or agency is operating in social media or not.
Problem is, success has a nasty way of going to someone’s head and they start to believe their own hype. At the end of the day, yes, we advise but we also need to listen to our client’s needs.
Twitter Comment
“I’m Just the PR Person” | PR Squared – [link to post]
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