Public relations consultant /blog

‘Public relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.’
– Chartered Institute of Public Relations

Sometimes it’s worth going back to basics and asking, ‘what is PR?’. Or what would public relations professionals like PR to be. And now is almost certainly one of those times. New fangled technologies are changing the way all of us communicate. There’s something of an internet mark two on the way – web 2.0 – and that means a PR 2.0 too.

Or does it? No-one can doubt that PRs have to learn new tricks, but overall objectives – in the US public relations ‘helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other’ – should not necessarily change. Good public relations has always been about conversations. Bad PR almost always afflicts organisations that either pay no heed to what others say about them or show no interest in adapting.

So it’s depressing the see a blogger at Weber Shandwick, one the world’s largest public relations consultancies, take the tagline ‘coming to terms with losing control’. Not even Stalin could control what others said about him. Control is a red herring. Any prediction for the future based on the assumption that public relations (or marketing) is used to controlling conversations is worthless: that isn’t our starting point.

Yet control is the theme of so many evangelists for PR 2.0. Modern Marketing’s James Cherkoff is typical (though to be fair, he’s more of a marketing than a PR man): ‘For ages, mass marketing has been about control of the message and command of the media.’

Hmm. I’d argue that marketing is actually about identifying (perhaps latent) demand, offering to meet that demand and shouting about your offer. Public relations might help you shout, but if that’s all it does it’s bad PR. James is talking about tactics, when the industry needs to discuss strategic objectives.

The new technologies – blogs are a perfect example – allow people to converse in new ways. What’s exciting for public relations is that it can now listen in legitimately and engage; we just need to learn how to do that with an eye to the emerging etiquette. The public relations industry has a unique opportunity to become what it aspires to be; a facilitator of conversations that promotes mutual understanding.

As Stuart Bruce muses: ‘The definition of traditional public relations is PR 2.0’
Contact Stephen Newton

Posted at : June 29th, 2006 - 10:42 am
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