PR: Quite a Big Industry to Generalize
July 5th, 2009 by JeremyPsst, want to know an easy way to piss off technology bloggers? Generalize them into one group and then make some rude comment like “and all their posts are always full of typos” or “written by a bunch of 17-year-olds”. Within nanoseconds of such a comment hitting the open Internet you’ll see individuals from all walks of life calling you narrow-minded, outdated, and probably some remark that only makes sense if you think invisible cats that have bad grammar are funny.
But somehow when a blogger decides to make a negative comment about someone who works in PR, it’s deemed okay. In fact other bloggers will often rally to their sides and talk about how they too know that all PR people are in fact bad people. Then some snotty CEO of a startup will chime in about how you don’t need PR, just do it all yourself and you’ll get the same exact results (psst – don’t look at these companies’ traffic charts a year later, it spoils all the fun). It’s not quite as bad as the flak parking meter enforcers take, but it’s pretty up there.
There’s an article in the NY Times called “Spinning the Web” and it tells some tales about using “influencers” and has some fun-to-read anecdotes. It’s otherwise full of crap.
I’ll make it quite simple to understand: this industry is simply too vast to generalize. There are PR firms and individuals who understand influence, social media, and bloggers. There are firms who don’t. There are those who know how to leverage all the changing media to benefit their clients. And there are those who don’t.
Like virtually every other services business, there are companies who are absolutely excellent at what they do, where every dime spent is paid back many times other. And there are also plenty of buzzword merchants, and people with their heads stuck in the sand still praying on the effectiveness of a wire release. And by the way, while I like to think it’s really easy to figure out the good from the bad, the bad are all somehow still in business, which means it’s not so clear to everyone.
You know, just like the bad bloggers who accept money for posting without telling anyone, or copy other people’s content, or use nothing but attention-grabbing headlines. Someone’s reading them, otherwise they’d go away, right?
Maybe we can stop with the generalizations while we let the good continue to separate from the bad…
July 5th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
When I see posts on PR from different countries, I am amazed to see how the issues plaguing the industry are pretty much the same everywhere. The accusations and generalisations happen in India as well. To a very large extent, the industry is responsible for the state it is in – not many have stood up to defend PR or have made conscious efforts to correct mistakes and misperceptions. I see these as the real issues with the industry, and (ironically) the reputation crisis it faces atleast in India:
- Dearth of talent: quality of professionals and lack of quality training facilities for communications professionals. PR is almost never the career of choice but happens by accident when nothing else clicks. Fortunately, that is changing now.
- PR-ignorant clients: lack of understanding among clients and weak corporate communications professionals on the other side who are unable to hammer in the importance of PR within their own organisation, reducing agencies to play the role of media messengers and facilitators
- Work pressure: I am not sure if its an issue of under-staffing or poor time management practises – perhaps a bit of both, but at any given time, you will see a PR executive is under pressure and stretched for time as s/he juggles with multiple accounts reacting to client demands. This does not leave them with much time to focus on quality, proactive, strategic PR.
- Lack of accountability: PR is hardly a passion for many..when anything becomes just a job, chances of your striving to excel in the field are little. Sometimes executives on an account are clueless about facts and statistics pertaining to their own clients or their industry. There is a need to take this job more seriously.
- Media hostility: I have often cursed myself for electing this thankless profession (having said that, if I were to do it all over again, I doubt I would choose anything else!!) where on one hand, one had to put up with client complaints and on the other, media arrogance and their often unreasonable tantrums. I could never understand why we could not together build a healthy ecosystem where information was the core, not ego.
I do see things changing now and perhaps we are moving towards a situation where PR is slowly getting the importance it deserves. There are more and more clients who are savvy enough to involve agencies and communications professionals in all strategic initiatives, and media that appreciates good work done by PR. But clearly, more needs to be done given the fact this is perhaps the only stream that could help a company forge a holistic relationship with all its stakeholders and its value is still woefully underrated.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Jeremy,
You are writing against generalization, the fact that when someone writes good or bad things about one or a few persons (be they bloggers, geeks, techies or PR) then all of these “corporation” feel to be all attacked at the same time.
But you are doing the same thing when you say:
[...] somehow when a blogger decides to make a negative comment about someone who works in XX, it’s deemed okay. In fact other bloggers will often rally to their sides and talk about how they too know that all XX people are in fact bad people. [...]
I would think you did not really mean “all people”…
Coming back about PR itself: it is a difficult job, dealing with touchy and demanding execs who do not help and touchy journalists… but you know this is part of the job description.
You know you will need to educate your customer’s expectation and explain them why the WSJ article is not complete. You know you will need to teach them why you cannot write in the press release that this is a “revolutionary product”, as they insisted to be written for the previous product, and the one before.
You know that you will have to tell them that journalist X is a bright person, but that s/he will ask hard questions and that they have to answer in a straight way, not using some convoluted words without a meaning.
You know that meeting this Y journalist with a new client who is really great will be difficult because your previous meeting was with a client that deliberately followed none of your advice.
You are infuriated that journalist Z who does not return your calls while you are calling him/her just when you have real PR info that you know will useful for him/her.
You shout and cry when reading what journalist Z has written after an interview, and how they have stupidly misunderstood and not taken the time to call you back for checking.
But all of these are part of the job description.
Like the success you had in briefing that great exec that you helped to be and look greater yet.
Like the damage control you successfully led after some disastrous information, but when all the journalists you had build confidence with trusted you and listened to your side of the story and then presented to their readers a balanced view of the problem.
Like this pleasant dinner with a journalist which produced no immediate result, except that your client looked so smart that after some weeks the journalist was calling him/her regularly to get a positive quote.
There are joys, there are pains. They are all part of the job… even if we prefer some over the others!