If there is a marketing group or function that should be a natural for driving social, media marketing success, I would pick PR. No other marketing function lives and dies by the success of maintaining strong relationships. And that is the key to social marketing success as well.
Successful social marketing is accomplished by building strong relationships such that your audience comes to the brand’s aid and produces word of mouth marketing, advocacy, and promotion of the brand. These actions yield a trusted source of marketing for the brand … much stronger than the brand’s own marketing.
When we look at the role of a PR agency, it is very similar. PR agencies look to manufacture earned media by key influencers for the brand’s target market. As defined at Wikipedia, “Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information …Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, [and] products, …”
PR companies are very well suited for driving social marketing success because their entire success is based upon relationships. Relationships are what drive social success. Yet PR companies, for the most part, have not championed social marketing in a successful way. Why is this so?
I will start by suggesting that the emphasis of PR individuals is more focused on “what will the relationship do for me” as opposed to the true objective of building valued give-and-take relationships. Now I know that this statement will not be taken well by a majority of PR professionals. So let me give an example to demonstrate why I could make such an unpopular statement. When I was running a social group for a well known magazine publisher, I had a PR professional on my team. She was so guarded of her contacts at other publications, that even when she went on vacation she would not give me, her boss, the email addresses of her contacts to make sure all activities were taken care of. This is common practice in the PR profession and I understand the motivation. Yes, the PR professional should own the relationship with contacts that yield earned media. But does that mean they are the only one that can talk to the “partner”? If PR professionals are so concerned about a strong relationship to truly produce a win-win for both sides, the PR professional would introduce their contact to numerous people they represents. (Okay, maybe not. But this mentality is definitely foreign to the objectives of social marketing.)
Even when I have written articles for publications and a PR professional has brokered the arrangement, I am rarely introduced to the appropriate “publishing” people. Yes, I understand the “preservation” aspect of the PR professional protecting their contacts. But the mentality of holding back is not conducive to strong relationship building with your target audience.
Another reason why there is a deficiency in PR agencies driving social media marketing success is that historically PR agencies deal with one monolithic type of person – the publisher. The publisher wants hot news and something different that will help to distinguish their journal. Pretty straightforward. The reality is that a brand’s audience is diverse with different wants, needs, and desires. Social marketers can define a target market persona of the individual that they are talking to, to best fit their message and communication. But they also need to recognize that the actual conversation in the relationship is going to take different turns. As social marketers look to motivate the target market it will take greater communication to build trust with a diversified group. PR agencies are not use to scaling this dimension of the conversation.
Thus I think there are very few PR agencies that can deliver successful social marketing today. Most are taking their existing PR model and playing that to a social practice and that spells failure. The PR agency that is willing to say, “Hey, we understand relationship building, but we are going to make it more authentic to a larger and more diverse audience than we are used to,” has a chance for success.
Far too many marketing agencies have taken what they have done well through out the years and applied it to a new channel. This won’t work for the digital revolution because new marketing channels driven by new technology provoke new and different audience behaviors. Everything a successful marketer does is based upon complete empathy and understanding of the target audience. The reality is that I have not seen PR agencies, by and large, recognizing this reality and adjusting appropriately and successfully. Who is ready to be the exception?
Make It Happen,
Social Steve
PS – I get it. I understand why PR professionals are possessive of their contacts. I am not suggesting they change this for a PR practice. But if they also run a social practice, a different mentality is required. This requires a strong social leader that appreciates why PR runs the way it does and at the same time shapes the social practice to be slightly different. This also requires a bit of give from the PR agency to allow a changed approach for their social practice.
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