Two of my pet PR discussion topics of recent times – web sites and social media – are both getting attention this week.
I’ve argued for well over five years that web sites are just another media channel and that the PR industry had been negligent in not understanding how to galvanise the power of web sites through using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
I’ve also argued that social media was principally a PR tool and that, yet again it was an example of the PR industry being slow to ‘catch on’, abdicating to interactive and digital agencies, and the perennial bottom feeders – advertising agencies.
In fact, recently in a blog, as a consequence of the Nestle controversy, I argued that it was time for PR Departments to take the bull by the horns and take control of the social media function. I’ve also recently asked the question as to how much control PR manager’s have over their organisation’s web site.
On this second topic there has been an interesting blog by TalentZoo this week arguing exactly the same proposition, with some good responses and discussions which I would recommend to any PR director or manager.
On the more general issue of web sites and social media a study this week by web analytics company Webtrends claims that web sites were overtaken by social media at the end of 2009, that we are about to move to Web 3.0 and and social media itself is forecast to peak (at least in the US) by 2012.
While a number of PR agencies in Australia have now jumped onto the social media bandwagon, I take some pride in the fact that the agency that I ran until last September – Network PR – was the first in Australia to seriously get into both search optimization and social media.
Alas I/we were ahead of our time. As was proven by the experience of The Population, a specialist social media agency, set-up by Photon Group with great fanfare and then closed just a few months ago, the market was just not there.
Why?
First, as I said both Network PR and The Population were ahead of the curve as companies generally did not understand the significance of social media and therefore weren’t prepared to devote budgets, or take the risk, associated with particular medium.
Second, when the marketing departments of companies did begin to wake up, they turned not to PR agencies, but to those they already had a relationship with, and trusted to a degree – the interactive and digital agencies and advertising agencies.
Third, these marketing departments and the product and brand managers within them don’t understand engagement. But they do understand promotion and that’s what the digital, interactive and advertising agencies offered them. It was seen as being less risky, and more just an extension of the marketing techniques that they were already using.
The result is that, in my view, too much of social media work in Australia is promotionally driven; involving gimmicks and competitions, and not enough is about genuine engagement and dialogue which is where PR comes in.
Who can forget the charade that Toyota went through last year, inviting several parties to come up with promotional concepts as their first venture into social media. In my view this showed a complete lack of understanding about the medium and how it can and should be used!
However, to return to my central point the PR industry has only itself to blame for being out maneuvered in the web and social media space. While some PR agencies are starting to do some good work, I still fear it is – in the main – too little and too late. Historically PR has been a very slow adopter of new ideas and technology. We’ve been slow to get on to the web and social media bus!
If anyone has an interest in how PR fits into the web and social media space I’ve previously written about a dozen articles on the subject .
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