For Good PR People, Digital Changes Nothing

In The Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke writes about his experience in corporate communications, explaining that at some point he stopped parroting the company's key messages and started talking to reporters about what they were interested in. "That's how I discovered PR doesn't work and that markets are conversations," he concludes.

Ten years later, in What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis argues that the public relations industry is one of two groups--the others of lawyers--who will find it difficult to adapt to the social media age. Why? "It should be the job of PR advisers to convince clients that it is in their interest to be transparent and honest now that obfuscation and lies can be exposed so easily online. That is PR turned upside down."

Meanwhile, in his new book Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications (co-authored with Courtney Barnes), Dartmouth University's Paul Argenti--who I respect and admires--says that "the business of managing relationships... has changed dramatically in the last decade.... Before the digital explosion corporate reputations were shaped by one-dimensional messaging that the senior-most managers pushed down the corporate ladder and disseminated to stakeholders separately and without discussion."

Sorry, but I don't buy it.

I understand that the rise of social media has made a quantitative change--the sheer volume of discussions about brands and corporate reputations has increased exponentially--but I don't see any way in which it has made a qualitative difference to the principles of good communications. In fact, in most respects it has made good public relations easier.

First of all, the traditional process of public relations applies to the majority of new media. Traditionally, PR people told their stories to third parties who had influence because they had either (or preferably both) a wide audience and strong credibility. They then relied on those people to tell that story to others. In many cases, those third parties were mainstream reporters, but good professionals out to a variety of influencers or opinion leaders.

The process for dealing with social media is virtually identical. You tell your story to people who have influence--bloggers, Twitterers, active participants in online communities, anyone with credibility--and then hope that they will communicate that story to their peers, fans and followers.

Not only is the process substantially similar to the process of traditional PR; the principles are the same. All of the buzzwords being thrown about to describe effective communications in the digital realm--transparency, engagement, conversation, dialogue, authenticity, integrity, credibility--are principles that have always been at the heart of good public relations.

The transparency and honesty Jarvis advocates did not suddenly become good practice because of social media; the obfuscation and lies he says are easily exposed in the digital age have always been short-sighted and counterproductive. Similarly, the "one-dimensional messaging" Argenti talks about was never best practice. I haven't gone back and re-read his earlier works, but I can almost guarantee you that before the digital revolution he was not advising companies to push messages "down the corporate ladder" and disseminate them "without discussion." That would have been lazy malpractice 20 years ago just as it's lazy malpractice now.

Social media experts talk about the need to surrender control of the message; PR people did that every time they spoke to a reporter.

Social media experts talk about the need to listen as much as you talk; good PR has always been as much about bringing an outside perspective into the company as it has been about delivering the company message to external audiences.

Social media experts talk about engaging directly with the public; that's what good public relations people have always tried to do, especially in the community relations realm, although they have been limited in terms of the media for such engagement.

Social media experts talk about measuring the success of campaigns by the level of engagement, the creation of ambassadors, the strength of relationships; that's been a Holy Grail for the PR industry (which has never been well served by metrics focused on media clippings and advertising equivalency) for as long as I've been writing about it.

In other words, if you were practicing public relations the right way 10 years ago, you're probably practicing public relations the right way today. Because all of the things that social media has supposedly transformed have always been a part of good public relations.

What has changed is that those organizations that don't practice good public relations--and there are plenty of them out there--will be discovered far more quickly in the digital era, and punished much more severely.

That may be the best news of all for good public relations people, because it will make clear the difference between good public relations--public relations driven by integrity, authenticity, engagement, conversation--and indifferent public relations. And it will allow those offering the former to charge the premium prices their experience and expertise deserve.