PR in a Social Media World
Nothing says “I love you” quite like stuffing the inboxes of your public relations (PR) mailing list with the latest press releases and announcements regarding your products and services, despite their relevancy to each recipient. If you believe this statement then most likely you view the role of PR as primarily a broadcast function and spend your communications dollars on awareness and announcements instead of alignment and leverage to support demand generation strategies.
While relying principally on a PR broadcasting strategy may be effective if you’re selling to a small, known universe within a specialized industry, most organizations are under-utilizing the PR function within their demand creation efforts. Particularly in a down economy, the more we can leverage and reuse our PR efforts across the full sales and marketing continuum the greater the impact.
When PR is merely the public mouthpiece for an organization, its ability to deliver and demonstrate value to a company is limited, particularly in trying economic times. While broadcasting an endless stream of press releases was once the key component of driving awareness, it now only serves to point out just how out of touch an organization can be to its target audience. Leveraging social media by simply using it as another channel to push your out your message is not the way to evolve the PR function; instead, fitting PR efforts into a highly integrated strategy that leverages its activities into the overall focus of sales and marketing is the sure path to success.