Blog #3

There were two basic concepts that were tackled in the discussion - Purpose of PR Agencies and the evolving existence of social networking sites. Which one does the work of public relations better? Is the latter a threat to the business of PR Companies? Are they each other’s enemy or a companion that could further endeavors?

As the name implies, Public Relations (PR) needs a good relationship with the public to fulfill image enhancement of a brand/entity. During the course of the discussion, advertising was distinguished from PR by defining the former as something that entails conscious effort from the brand or advertiser to promote while the latter lets the others – the consumers or public – do the talking (Shankman 2009). This is why the panelists suggest that PR practitioners find mediums where everyone, including the PUBLIC, could be a player (Shankman 2009). The language, as they have pointed out, should be simple enough for everyone to relate to (Solis 2009). The audience being able to say what they want and serve as jurors of products. The PR experts would act as listeners instead of the traditional controller of information (Solis 2009). The PR pros, instead of spoon feeding information to the public, would now sit down and listen, be spoon fed by the public with their opinions. This is precisely what Social Networking provides - an arena to which a community could talk about anything, including your product.

The likes of tweeter, face book and my space, are getting more popular these days. Brian Solis, one of the panelists, in his blog dated October 17, 2008 cited that Twitter.com had a significant increase of about 440% visits from about the same time the previous year (Solis 2008). Evidently, a critical audience online has been assembled. The communities are already there, available to any advertiser who wants to reach their market directly (Shankman 2009). Why wait for a magazine or newspaper to be picked up, when the market are sitting right in front of their computers.

At the start of the forum, two basic principles – PURPOSE OF PR AGENCIES and EXISTENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES seem to clash – one might die due to another’s emergence. But at this point, there is a need to distinguish dying from changing trends. The above discussion implies that social network sites are good avenues to do PR. Who will do it and how it shall be done would still best come from the experts – the PR Agencies. When Shankman (2009) said, “In 24-36 months PR, Press Releases, as we know them, will be dead”, he could be referring to the PR instrument – press releases, but not the entity (PR Agencies) behind the article. The panelists suggest that PR is now taking another step - from the primitive one way manipulation to a two way communication. There is always an option for the company to not outsource an agency for this purpose as suggested by Shankman. But again, if you think that the company does not have enough resources, knowledge and talent to push for PR efforts, it would be better to get third party agencies (Portman 2009).

Press Releases as mentioned by Shankman, maybe dead soon but PR Agencies could thrive. This could happen if they rise up to the challenge and learn to adjust to the new game being offered. Solis (2009) couldn’t have said it any better, “we (referring to the PR practitioners) thought we had control, what we really had was the ability to stir or shape perception, that doesn’t change, and we have a greater opportunity now…a greater ability…offered directly by the community”. Two ideas which was at the start of the discussion proves to be opposing, could after all be married. PR Agencies are still essential. They know the rules of PR game. They just have to jive with the changing trend to avoid extinction. And one urgent-interesting medium to explore are social network sites.