Public Relations Strategy – Then, Now, Later

Just finished reading a rather long article on Mashable (worth reading if you have 5 mins), that goes in-depth into the topic on how social media is changing the landscape for the marketing communications professional. It has. Building trust with maintream media by being a viable content publisher in social media and pitching them in the mediums where they live and breathe, is destroying the cold call email pitch, and phone calls are even less effective.

The tip of the PR sword for many years was the press release. It was faxed, emailed and distributed via online wire services to add backlinks to a website and rank well for SEO. Today being an adept PR pro on social media is the new tool of choice for smart PR pros looking to break through into the mainstream media’s field of vision. Build cred, build trust, think like a journalist, then reach out.

Here are my top 3 quotes from the article that IMHO you can take to the bank. The challenge remains wading through the surplus of information to get to what is relevant to your business, or simply even accurate. So here are mine:

Heather Whaling – Geben Communication
“It’s critical that we’re innovative and staying on top of the latest and greatest; however, we also need to avoid ’shiny object syndrome’ and instead make recommendations based on the client’s business needs.”

Scott Bauman – Greenough Communications
“In the end, the real change is a more fluid, immediate, and nimble PR/communications practitioner, instead of one who simply follows a PR plan and rigidly adheres to it.”

Nichole VanScoten – Pixl
“It’s amazing to me that I get a MUCH higher response rate when pitching reporters via Twitter than e-mail. I would actually go as far as to say that every time I’ve pitched a reporter via Twitter, I have gotten some sort of response (often resulting in a story for my client). Via e-mail, I have maybe a 50% response rate. The phone call response rate would be my lowest.”