Social Media & PR – How to get the best of both worlds for your business

by    |   27th Sep 10 2:15 am   |   5
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PR and SM in Biz e1285575201604 Social Media & PR How to get the best of both worlds for your businessWilcox Group, one of Vancouver Canada’s “reigning PR stars” has recently announced that it is being forced to close shop, due to major changes in the PR “landscape,” caused by the emergence of social media. Though Mat Wilcox, the founder of Wilcox Group says that it’s a conscious decision and there’s no crisis situation, the announcement has set the alarm bells ringing in the PR world.

Social Media Killed the PR Star. Really?

Is social media the murderer responsible for the sudden demise of Wilcox Group. I, for one, strongly disagree with that statement. Mat Wilcox earlier wrote

“We love working in social media—it’s a new and exciting frontier for communications and business—but the financial model to support this shift simply isn’t here yet.”

Does Wilcox believe that there’s no financial model to align social media with the current PR landscape? Or is it just that Wilcox Group couldn’t come up with a feasible model to extract the best of both worlds.

These are tough questions that need to be answered or else the exit of a PR diva such as Wilcox Group will set a bad precedent for applying social media in the PR world.

Social Media & PR – Natural Allies

I strongly believe that social media and PR are natural allies to each other. If one or two companies can’t pull it off, it doesn’t mean that social media isn’t suitable for public relations.

I’m aware of several PR rock stars who’ve adapted wonderfully well to the new and exciting world of social media.

How to get the best of both worlds for your business?

Despite being a staunch social media loyalist, I’ve never written off the old school PR tactics. At the same time, I strongly believe that there’s a solid financial model for deriving the best of social media for any business’ PR needs. All you need to do is exert some more pressure on your gray cells and be prepared to muscle your way out despite the odds.

Conventional PR isn’t dead. But without social media by its side, traditional PR is definitely a sinking ship.

I can present several examples of how social media augments conventional PR. A case in point is a company press release. While a print press release is effective, it isn’t instant and it takes a while to reach the intended audience. In contrast, online press releases are instant and can further be propagated to a mass audience using the wide reach of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

From a business perspective, it’s high time to adopt a hybrid approach to PR or else you are lining up to end up in the same boat as Wilcox Group.

What’s your opinion on this? Do you think that social media isn’t a sustainable channel for PR? Is social media exerting undue pressure on the PR world? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

Douglas Idugboe, Digital and New Media Marketing Strategist. Founder and Chief Editor of Smedio! A Canadian Bestselling Author, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and Trainer, Who Loves Technology
  • http://themanalyst.com Manal Assaad

    I totally agree with you on this. I think that social media can be a great support to traditional PR tactics. As you mentioned the online press release example, there’s also the benefit of the ability to get the public’s instant reaction and feedback to a press release, monitor your client’s reputation in a way that was never so interactive before… Those are just some of the benefits of social media; it shouldn’t be thought of as a replacement for traditional methods but more thought of as a leverage!

  • http://wordsdonewrite.blogspot.com Words Done Write

    I know a few former PR colleagues who are destined to become dinosaurs because they are not evolving with the changing media landscape. Long gone are the days of 20 pound clipbooks and what “the media” has said about your company or product. Today, it’s all about what masses say, and what Average Joe says to his social circle.

    I agree with you that PR is not dead. However, it is not the PR that once was. Those practitioners who don’t change with the times are destined for the unemployment line.

    Amber Avines
    @wordsdonewrite

  • Jbassett

    Do Social media and PR work hand in hand? Absolutely. Is there a financial model for a large PR firm to capitalize on providing Social media services for their client base… perhaps not. Similar to other service oriented businesses PR is about who you know and the relationships you have built. This is what most PR firms are really charging for, the relationships they have with media outlets. Long story short, they can get your news in front of the people that will make it news.

    Now in comes Social media and it is no longer about who you know. In simple terms, the gatekeepers of news are no longer the gatekeepers. You can hire a writer and handle all the social media outlets internally. In my opinion, this is what the Wilcox group and other PR groups are struggling with; how to charge clients for social media services that can be performed in house.

  • Bob Dearsley

    I am aghast to read the recent announcement from the Wilcox Group. In my opinion, anyone who is unable to adapt and move with the times should not be surprised to suffer the same fate as the dinosaur. It is astonishing that an organisation cannot progress its offering in the light changes to the business environment. Coming from the old school of PR as referred to in the article, as an organisation we have spent the last two years reviewing our offerings and driving forward into social, digital and search. It is now absolutely fundamental to consider social media as part of the distribution landscape. It is hard to believe that an organisation cannot grasp the monetisation and development of processes that are necessary to pull current social media into PR best practice.

    Social media is an important strategy to undertake in any PR activity and aligning it with a more traditional PR campaign will not only make for a stronger argument but also reach extended audiences. Blogs, search engine optimised press releases, and Twitter are now proven elements of existing campaigns with highly successful results. Some of these will be massively more important within Business-to-Consumer environments but using these new channels in the Business-to-Business field is just as important.

    Bob Dearsley, Chairman, ITPR

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