The Basics of Public Relations Haven’t Changed
December 23, 2008 by ShannonCherry
Filed under Marketing
Jason Falls is a great new media public relations person. And recently, I read his blog post “Is The Future of Advertising Public Relations?”
Jason makes some great points about the future influence of bloggers on the media landscape, but right at the beginning I squirmed:
(I say new-fashioned because old-fashioned is sending blast emails to hundreds of media outlets or bloggers and calling it a day. New-fashioned is reaching out personally to individuals to build a relationship and working with them to meet their needs and yours in symbiotic fashion.)
Ummm… I didn’t know that the new-fashioned wasn’t always the case, Jason.
Good PR people reach out to journalists and try to build relationships with them.
I was a TV anchor and reporter, so I know what crap can be sent to people blindly, now known as spamming. It was those PR folks who reached out and gave me stories I could use, whether it benefited them or not.
The goal of a good public relations practitioner isn’t getting the big ‘media placement’. The goal is to figure out how I can build a relationship with media folks, one that benefits both of us, and maybe down the road, between that person and my client.
A good PR person has the tools necessary to build relationships, not just spam people.
Image credit: datingammo_king, on Flickr
Hey Shannon. Thanks for the mention. New-fashioned SHOULD have been the case all along and has been for many good public relations professionals. But once email took over at the primary method of communications in the business world (1990-ish?) and the BCC field was invented, PR in general deteriorated to mass blasts, shotgun approaches with little to no personal relationship at the core of what PR professionals did.
Mind you, there are some than actually stopped to think about the technology and relationships that didn’t make the mistake, but we have about a 15-20 year gap in the evolution of our profession where the senior level folks stopped teaching, put the onus to drive reach and exposure on junior level folks who knew the technology, but were never grounded in the relationship-building nature of what PR is.
So for those who have gotten it all along, you’re right. Overall, however, we haven’t lived in a perfect world.
Thanks for the push back though. It makes for good discourse.
I don’t think that I can say enough about the importance of building relationships. Not only in PR, but also in regular business dealings (including my favorite topic, leadership). Building relationships is at the core of successful PR, leadership, marketing, and, in most cases, business in general. I think we need to be reminded of this every so often so that we remember to step away from our daily activities every once in a while to focus on what is most important.
Oh, and Merry Christmas! :-)