PR-Bridge

What is on my mind more frequently these days is the ubiquity of “branding.” For some of you, this is a “master of the obvious” topic. But at the heart of the matter, I’m not sure there is even a reason to be talking about “public relations,” “marketing,” or “advertising” anymore.

Teaching in a public relations “sequence,” however, keeps me wondering about what kind of information gets eliminated when all the professions usually lumped under the “marketing” umbrella get pushed to ”branding.” Are communicators then giving up too much power…the traditional PR “purist” argument against integration?

From a more self-centered point of view, is my personal emphasis on integration and branding helping or hindering my students? My gut and career in communications tells me that the move toward integration is critical for future success.

What are your thoughts?

The spate of bad press public relations received recently is disheartening, but accentuates the basic premise of journalist/practitioner relations — build the relationship on mutual trust and respect.

In the Anderson/Wired magazine case, he lashed out because of the number of unsolicited and irrelevant releases he received. Calling out the public relations professionals publicly (including those from many big “name” firms) may seem a bit over the top, but the it made an important point: do your homework before mass mailing yet another press release.

This lesson about building trusting relations with journalists is important for students and young professionals. Having spent more than a decade as a freelance journalist, I have seen the downside of spam e-mails. I routinely receive releases about food, travel, and other topics that I have never written about as a journalist. And, I am just a part-time freelancer…I cannot imagine the number of releases that would cascade in if I were a magazine or newspaper staffer.

Both public relations professionals and journalists realize that they need each other. Trusting relationships are fantastic and mutually beneficial. Great PR pros I have worked with while wearing my journalist hat helped illuminate stories by providing additional (key) information and access to executives. Furthermore, practitioners on both sides have seen the studies that reveal about 75 percent of the news each day comes from a PR source. We need each other, so why not build the relationship on trust?

Brian Pittman’s exclusive interview with Anderson for Bulldog Report’s Daily Dog is revealing in many aspects, particularly for students and young professionals. Anderson talks about his own use of PR at Conde Nast:

“Condé Nast employs hundreds of PR people. I have PR people on my own staff. We believe in PR. We spend a lot of money on it. Some of our best employees’ functions are driven by PR. In fact, we’re changing the game internally here by using what we’re calling PR 2.0 to train staff to do their own marketing and outreach for their work and stories.”

So, Anderson’s criticism did not indict PR in general…it slapped sloppy practitioners who do not do their homework. Or, in other words, don’t try to build a lasting relationship with journalists at target publications.

Anderson’s “tips” for pitching are just about textbook, as well as the challenges. I’m going to end with a long quote, because it indicates a major problem that the PR industry must address:

“Read it. Freakin’ read what you’re pitching to. I shouldn’t even have to say that. Why don’t more PR people do it? The reason pitches are inappropriate is because making them work requires reading and a real interest in the industry you’re promoting. You have to care about it. We all want emails from people who really understand what we do, why we do it, and who are sophisticated about their own industries and who can speak the language. So, I guess the tip here is to really consume the press in your areas.

I don’t think you’ll ever get a 23-year-old communications major able to talk to me about my robotics interest in the same way as the engineer who created the product. So another major tip here or area of focus for PR people should be coaching the guy in the know and plugged into the development process on how to reach out to me himself—not some entry-level PR person who doesn’t even get the product. This is facilitating, not gatekeeping. If this is the only thing we can change about PR in our lifetime, it would be enough.”

Think about the facilitator/gatekeeper analogy…Is this the Public Relations 2.0 model?

Dear Public Relations (Hiring) Professional,

Students are getting mixed messages about the state of entry-level employment in communications. While some recent articles lament the “talent drain” in communications, pointing to a need for great talent, others examine how to woo today’s college graduates, with at least an air of “you don’t understand them and they don’t understand you,” which does neither employer or potential employee any good.

I say, let’s cut to the chase. If we work together, the resulting system to pipe top students into meaning positions will make for happier employees, thus solving the first half of the retention issue. And, working with Public Relations teachers (those of us surrounded by students daily), you will get the “inside baseball” look at candidates that far surpasses what you can find surfing around MySpace or Facebook.

One does not have to look far or wide to see examples of how this works in practice. For instance, all professional sports leagues have talent scouts that work closely with coaches to identify talent. The role of coach is one that can really benefit agencies and companies. We know the work of our students intimately and can talk about their strengths and challenges at length (just as sports coaches discuss 40-yard dash times, arm strength, etc.).

The easy counter to this idea is to say that PR teachers already serve as talent managers, conducted through our personal networks. My thought is that filling the talent system would work better if formalized to some degree. [A concurrent benefit is that as a level of trust builds between professional and teacher, a dialogue opens regarding other ways to utilize the talents of each.]

A formalized system, to some degree, would also attract better students into PR programs and get them thinking about the benefits and possibilities for a career in communications earlier. For example, if students knew that the University of South Florida School of Mass Communications and Fleishman, Edelman, or other agencies had direct ties, the students entering the program work harder for the potential payoff.

So, public relations hiring professional, let’s work together. Please hire my top students!

Thanks,

Bob

The last couple sessions in my “Public Relations: Issues, Problems, Practices” class we discussed consumer relations from the perspective of companies and how professionals build brands. This is an interesting topic for a variety of reasons, including that I have heard several high-profile executives claim that PR does not even exist anymore…they see the function existing under the umbrella of “branding,” along with advertising, marketing, and other forms of communications.

The discussion spurred thoughts regarding how students could use the idea of branding in preparing themselves to go out on the job market. I urged my students to begin thinking of themselves as a brand and to build that brand in advance of the job hunt. These notions are not new, bright business minds like Dan Pink have talked about the “free agent nation” for years and how the changing idea of work transforms society. However, I see our value as teachers in bringing this kind of information to students’ attention…we have the time/inclination to interpret these ideas for them, and then give the best and the brightest the opportunity to put them into action.

There are several simple steps a student can take to build their brand. First, set up a communications-related blog. Blogging is inexpensive (free) and does two things: shows potential employers that the student has a grasp on social media and gives the student a forum for displaying how smart she is. I think students should assume that their future bosses have an expectation that the student will know more about social media than they do. However, I do not think this is the case, at least as I’ve noticed in talking to students from around the country. They know a ton about cellphones, but so little about using social media for reputation/branding.

Next, become active members of a social network, such as LinkedIn.com or MyRagan.com. LinkedIn is a general business networking site, while MyRagan is specifically built for communicators. I have a student who used LinkedIn to not only show his boss his extensive list of media contacts, but how the student himself linked to the future boss, even though they were a continent apart. A potential employee who can impress his future boss this way is going to stand out on so many levels.

Yes, these steps are extra work, which students will need to load on top of all their coursework, etc. But, the payoff exists. I have seen it already. Have you? Please share your experiences with us. If you’re a professional, let us know if this jibes with your mindset when hiring young people.