Smarter PR: Public Relations in the Era of Self-Publishing
It’s been fascinating to watch the media landscape evolve with the communication revolution of the past 30 years. As a PR practitioner for 20+ of those rapidly changing cycles of an ever expanding media landscape, I have watched, studied and navigated the resulting information tidal wave.
PR people, with a story to tell (often a really good one despite the spinmeister stereotype), have fewer options and more competition for getting our client’s messages out there and heard by the people that matter most. Challenges are many:
- We have more and more pay-to-play opportunities cropping up. Often without any disclaimers that note paid content.
2. We have shrinking traditional newsrooms with fewer reporters covering more content with less resources and tighter deadlines. If you don’t have a personal relationship or offer great value, your pitch is always DOA.
3. We spend more time than ever vetting whether a lemon is worth the squeeze, with self-publishing, bloggers and influencers offering opportunities for coverage but without huge audiences. The segmentation requires judgement weighing who these eyeballs belong to and the resources needed to enter their view.
I imagine the pitching process with the larger legacy media outlets looking like a virtual version of the stock market trading floor on Wall Street in the 80’s. Thousands of hopeful, eager PR practitioners with a story to tell jump around eagerly waiving their client’s story and shouting it’s value. A few brilliant but jaded gatekeepers stand on the riser scanning the crowd. They choose a slip of paper here, a note there and they are off to push more content in a daily hamster wheel of activity.
This whole environment can be exhausting and overwhelming, even for those of us that have grown thick skin and evolved darting eyes and tapping fingers that allow us to scan and act with lightening speed when opportunities arise.
Accordingly, the most important skill for PR storytellers is editing. We have to know what is important and who it is important to. We have to face our clients with no fear when they assert a story idea that we know has little news value, and help protect the pipeline of information that journalists receive like a firehose. We have to help them identify stories that matter and find media outlets that will care. We have to stop spamming outlets with information and take the time to target our efforts.
In this era, it’s encouraging to see PR people and journalists work together with mutual respect. We provide resources and act as coordinators to help get information and assets needed for digital stories. We run along side them and help journalists do their jobs at the pace of business. We understand that the story has to have value and that they are the ultimate judge of what makes the cut.
Working smarter is vital. Let’s educate clients that more coverage does not always equal better. One perfectly placed story trumps a mountain of clips that missed the mark. And let’s help our journalist friends find the best stories and protect them from the ones we know don’t quite pass the test.
If we filter and advocate for good content, we will do the world a service enabling journalists to focus on quality stories and helping our clients share important news.