Thanks for the comment – I think there are more PRs joining Twitter daily than any other sector

Just because can do blogs, twitter, or the myriad other things that work for online PR, doesn’t mean that we don’t understand the medium.

Firstly, on-line PR is simply a part of PR and needs using when it reaches an appropriate audience, not just for the sake of it.

Think for a moment about what PRs do: even something as simple as a product launch could be ruined by letting slip that it’s coming, who we’re approaching with the story, or that we couldn’t get a demo model to work.

And in the middle of a crisis we really want to be updating people on what we’re doing? Typically we may have information that could hurt people or is unconfirmed, and, more importantly, we should have better things to do in the midst of it all than blogging.

The beauty of social media is its immediacy and the bad bits are the bits that are interesting – the faux pas, rude bits and funny stories. Things journalists, bloggers, twitterers etc are great at and rewarded for with a following. And PRs would be rewarded with sacking for writing.

Effective PR is generally planned and whilst we acknowledge the bad bits, and deal with them, they’re not the bits we want to highlight. The interesting stuff has to be left out if you want to keep clients!

Which leaves us space to talk about our personal lives (do readers really want to know about last night’s curry or this mornings hangover when we should be working clear headed?), other PR companies (PR for them)or the industries we work in (strength in this one).

PRs not using social media for themselves? I suspect that 99% of PRs don’t drive Bugatti Veiron’s either, but just because someone publishes the fact that we don’t, doesn’t mean that we should.

Let’s face it, a blog from PR company would only be a PR exercise – not even a thinly veiled one. It’s sometimes much better to create and feed other, more genuine, sources of entertainment and information.

And with a whole wide web out there, there’s no problem finding plenty of them.

My take – just cos the firm doesn’t have a blog doesn’t mean the people who make it up don’t. Ours isn’t live yet (Brando-Digital) for example (though parent co Band & Brown’s is) but mine has been for years

The biggest problem I have with it is the logic that online PR = have own blog.

Just as there’s more to media relations than press releases, there’s so much more than blogging to online PR: SEO, using releases to generate backlinks, Twitter, blogging, social media marketing…the list goes on.

It’s about using the right tool for the job. Just because an agency doesn’t blog themselves doesn’t mean they don’t get it (how many graphic design firms have got crap websites?).

And then there’s the accuracy of their figures to contest…

Hotwire
Bite Communications
brands2Life
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Edelman
Waggener Edstrom
Text 100
Nelson Bostock Communication
The Whiteoaks Consultancy
Inferno Communications
Rainier PR
Octopus Communications
The Red Consultancy
CC Group
Johnson King
AD Communications
Trimedia
Six Degrees

And of course big generalists like H&K do to. And I’m sure many others in the top 100 do to.

Of course, the PR industry can always do better in terms of its approach to online PR – but it does seem that it is in this instance the results don’t seem to stack up.

Like many SEO companies, Bigmouthmedia offers what it defines as online PR – focusing on ‘optimising’ press releases to fit SEO campaigns rather than advising clients on their online comms strategies. A pretty narrow definition of online PR by most agency standards.

If the survey results are true, I’d say 79 out of the top 100 agencies are about to go under. But I’d be more worried if a independent commentator on the PR industry had generated this research. Perhaps we as an industry should commission something similar and find out what the true picture is?

http://escherman.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/
most-pr-people-believe-print-coverage-is-more-valuable-
than-online-an-exercise-in-cognitive-dissonance/

@Chris – as I said in the post, the numbers did feel low to me – haven’t had time to actually do a proper check on the top 100 PR League table to see if it actually checks out. To your point about selling services to trad PR companies, that is exactly what we are trying to do at escherman…..

@ Adam – nothing wrong with being an accountant Agree that we online PR advocates have to keep working on demonstrating the value (and sense) of our approach

Thanks for the hattip. I agree “aware” doesn’t equal “on the ball” but IMHO I do think that there are an increasing number of PRs who are – though arguably from a relatively small base. But then hey I’m an accountant so what do I know about PR!

On the try before they buy point I think you are spot on. Agencies are sometimes reluctant to take a more proactive approach to using new services such as ours. However I also think it is equally our responsibility as a service provider to communicate the value of what we do and the influence the online media has. This is something we are working on improving significantly as we speak.

Thanks again
Adam