Has the media become totally irrelevant?
I’m not the first person to suggest the mainstream media has become irrelevant, and I won’t be the last. But I am pretty confident that the demise of the news media as we know it means one thing for PR practitioners — we need to seriously re-think our approach.
Last week I got a call from a friend who has been a fixture in the Valley PR scene for a long time and he is frustrated. He was asking me if I thought PR had become harder in Phoenix and I said it undoubtedly has. The reason, I said, is that there are fewer relevant outlets to pitch and the outlets that have remained have smaller staffs and less space/time for local news. You want to pitch a banking-related story in Phoenix? If you don’t break through to Russ Wiles or Chris Casacchia you’re toast. That’s just the world we live in now.
Then I read Robyn Itule’s brilliant rant on her blogabout how useless media databases like Cision and Vocus are in terms of getting a journalist’s attention. Why do we even bother blasting press releases out anymore? Unless you’re pitching for a publicly-traded company or have a can’t-miss story it’s a waste of time. And yesterday I had a conversation about the value of wire service like PRWeb and BusinessWire/PRNewswire and that conversation ended with the declaration that these tools are also a waste of time unless you’re a publicly-traded company looking to get hits on financial news aggregator sites.
So, again, I ask, what’s a poor flack to do? My answer is increasingly becoming this: skip the middle man and go straight to the customers. Would you rather place a story in the Arizona Republic that nobody is going to read or reach out to 200 interested customers on Facebookwith a smart post? Let me ask that another way? Would you rather spend $800 to blast a release out on BusinessWire or reach hundreds of potential customers at once on an industry blog for free?
The new PR — it’s social media stupid!
Has the media become totally irrelevant?
Add your Comment
Want Your Picture Icon? Go to gravatar.com and set a picture up to your email address for free. It also works on thousands of other websites, too!
Categories
Recent Comments
I’m so glad IABC Phoenix and Phoenix PRSA were...
“the future of...
I’m not a big fan of it. Maybe I just don’t have a good use for it...
I wanna be Shwaaged. 
Just bought another three books...
Blogroll
- Acme Photography
- Brain Matter
- Brian Shaler
- Convince & Convert
- Cut Me Some Flack
- Espresso Pundit
- HMA Time
- Hoi Polloi Report
- Linda VandeVrede
- Mighty Interactive
- Off Madison Ave
- Park & Co.
- Park Howell
- PR Advice
- Random Tuesday Morning Ramblings
- SoCal PR Blog
- Stealthmode Blog
- Take Three
- tdhurst
- Team Forty
- The Marketing Journalist
- The One to Go To
- The PR Practitioner
- Think Fast
- What I DO Know is…
Comments
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Interesting take on traditional vs. new media opportunities for PR pros. While I tend to agree with most of what you point out, I still think traditional media serves a role in the PR strategy. But we definitely need to pay attention to new media opportunities as well. Or our industry will end up suffering in the end too.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
As the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz would say, “Ain’t it the truth, Ain’t it the truth or You can say that again.”
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
I would say that people still do read the Republic, it just depends on what audience you’re trying to reach. I reach a core audience through stories in the Republic many times each year. Those same audiences aren’t on facebook just yet. In addition, I use cision to obtain email addresses for pitches, but do not pay to have them sent out. It is important to consider the audience.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
PR has not become harder at all, while the print space has become more frangmented and scarce, it still leads — bloggers, comments via social media, etc. all emanate from the news of the day (an excellent point made by Jim Leherer at the Cronkite luncheon a couple weeks ago).
One key problem — your friend? — is that many PR people lack the skill or will to adapt in ways to help them succeed.
**They fail to set proper client expectations for coverage. Most news is a news brief, not a feature.
**They fail to forge and then *maintain* journalist relationships on their client’s behalf. Who’s calls get taken? First time caller or longtime friend?
**They fail to understand what those journalists are really looking for. People need to pay attention to coverage. If blind or off-pitching gets no result, shame on the pitcher.
**They fail to pitch news pieces properly.
**They fail to package multimedia aspects properly. What’s the visual? How can the story become more attractivem, say, online with graphs, charts, photos, videos?
**THEN, many QUIT when they fail on a pitch instead of looking at new angles (or media) in which to reapproach. If at first you don’t succeed….
On your direct-to-social media points: IMHO — as long as they make good strategic sense — social media tactics should be in addition to media relations not in place of them.
Believe me, any company would take the 2,000 sales and ancillary branding from a CNN hit or New York Times piece (or any major media coverage) over 200 straight-to-Facebook sales any day of the week. Ideally, a good PR consultant would urging clients to pursue BOTH fronts at once to get the additive 2,200 sales. Ideally a good PR consultant is developing ways these tactics integrate and build on one another.
To use one tactic exclusively — even due to cost concerns — is naive.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Nodding enthusiastically with your closing line.
Cheers!
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
In 1984, I had a target list of media and typed up press releases that were then mass printed by the dept secretary and hand mailed out. In 2008, I have millions of potential media that can be reached in every avenue possible – both traditional routes and via social media. Wire service facilities help scan copy so that key words can be highlighted and available for search engines to retrieve, which helps your client’s message appear during searches. The traditional part of PR has never changed – building relationships. The segmenting challenge has become more complex, however – reaching not just mass media, but media of every type and kind, including John Q. Public as self-appointed blogger/commentator. I thought I had a busy job in 1984 — but in retrospect, it was a piece of cake compared to what PR people face now in trying to effectively reach all the media.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Additional nod to Dan’s comments, which magically materialized after I posted. Much of what you (Dan) describe underscores the personalized approach social media encourages. Mature, thoughtful, artfully-cultivated relationships and pitches are ever the name of the game.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Much like building a relationship with a reporter, don’t forget that grassroots events also are an excellent way to advance your client’s reputation and build business.
For almost every client this year, we’ve gotten media attention by developing creative events that allow them to interact face-to-face with a target demographic too. I’m not referring to trade show booths but to experiential events like speed dating on a Valley Metro bus, a or a “healthy happy hour” in a doctor’s office, or a forum for parents about underage drinking before prom.
Our job is to help strategically grow business and awareness — not just rack up clips. A media hit by itself is here today and gone tomorrow, but a face-to-face meeting can leave a longer impression.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
It was and always will be about relationships. PR isn’t harder, establishing a relationship is. With the constant shuffling that goes on in traditional media it can be very difficult to build a solid working relationship. Databases, wire services, social media, traditional media are all tools we must use to do our jobs. You just have to know the right one for the right message to the right audience.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Interesting post, Len. And it has definitely sparked a conversation – which is always a good thing!
I am the Director of Media Research at Cision. Our research content helps guide our clients to the right outlets and contacts for a particular idea or campaign. We don’t encourage our clients to send the same pitch to 100s of contacts, but instead to use our data to contact journalists with relevent materials in the way that they want to be contacted (if they want to be contacted).
The changing media landscape is definitely shaking up the PR world and we hope to assist our clients in learning about that new landscape through training, white papers, webinars, conference engagements, our blog and by practicing what we preach.
We are always eager to hear ideas on how we can help educate the PR community and provide tools that will be useful and relevent to their needs.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Very perceptive post.You are right. The reporter/editor has been disintermediated and we now go straight to the public with our stories. And it works much better.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Ketchum PR does an excellent survey every year concerning how consumers get their info, and how we as PR people are disseminating it. I highly recommend looking at that survey. I heard the 2008 version at the recent PRSA International Conference. It’s not on the web yet, but will be this month. The 2007 version is available at http://www.ketchum.com/2007mediasurvey
The big “ah ha” for me with the survey is that how comsumers get their info and how we put it out don’t always coincide. Social media is one significant part of that, but it’s not the total picture.