Had an interesting chat the other day about the concept of two paradigms existing within the PR world: 1) traditional PR i.e. media relations and 2) digital relations. So I thought I’d jot it down…
Basically, the concept highlights a divide in the mindset of today’s PRs. The first paradigm said to encompass those traditional PRs who view digital as a means for pushing the same message down different channels. The second, those PRs who use digital channels to create communities and speak directly to stakeholders. Think column inches vs Facebook friends.
It swiftly moved onto a debate about whether PR is actually best placed to own the ‘digital relations’ paradigm, given that sometimes there is no media involved, or whether it was one of those other marketing disciplines (shudder).
Naturally, I was fighting the PR corner.
For me, the term ‘digital relations’ consists of the following disciplines:
- Social media relations: creating and distributing content to the likes of blogs, social network users, on forums and message boards etc. and then interacting with them
- Digital media relations: the online form of what PR people do offline, but to ‘newsbrands’ like the BBC, Times Online and The Guardian, rather than ‘newspapers’. This approach also includes finding alternative ways to provide content, e.g. video, graphics, animation, images etc.
- Creating digital communities: establishing a community, or communities, of influential stakeholders within key digital platforms and using a combination of the to simulate the community and increase its size
- Traditional media relations: generating press coverage offline to generate a buzz and drive search online
My argument was / is that the PR industry is best placed to own the business of creating communities and building relations without a media filter, directly to the stakeholder, rather than other digital marketing practices, because it is what we have always done: tailor messages, phrases and words, and communicate with stakeholders on our clients’ behalf.
You’ll notice in the above list that I’ve included both digital and traditional media relations. I’ve done so because I don’t believe that you can create ‘effective’ communities without using third-party sources, like the media to generate a buzz.
I don’t believe that the media, or journalism, will ever die. We PR people will always need a filter for one reason or another. Whether it is to create a buzz offline, secure third-party endorsement, or leverage the authority of a particular journalist / news brand.
Either way, if you strip the different disciplines of ‘digital relations’ back to basics, they are fundamentally about using words, messages and phrases to get a clients’ point of view across. As well as building relationships with key stakeholders and influencing them to endorse your clients’ brand to change the behaviour of the individuals within a relevant community.
So basically, what digital PRs do and what PRs should be doing. This is why we are best placed to create communities rather than any other those other marketing disciplines…
Tags: Digital Marketing, Digital Relations, Digtial PR, Media Relations, Online Communities, PR



