Comments on: Is PR relevant in a social media world?

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:31:05 +0000

I appreciate your candid response. More seriously, there has got to be signs of life from your PR program otherwise it is a waste of time and budget. It seems like awareness and trust builders like PR are the most difficult things to measure for direct results. Clear intermediary metrics are typically the best you can do. Depending on the company, however, you can often see the lift from significant press hits.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:24:55 +0000

PR still matters
it is hard to measure now
but can really help

By: limeduck

limeduck — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:30:56 +0000

Well, you’re asking for it, so here it is… You present a good list of reasons why PR still matters or why it’s good – and I agree with most of them – but you’ve got bupkes on accountability for your PR program. Watching your main metrics and seeing if they respond to PR bumps is ok, but if you’ve got active marketing programs going on, I doubt that you’ll be able to parse signal from noise unless you hit the WSJ.

I grant that you probably can’t show ROI on PR, but that doesn’t mean you just throw up your hands and say, hey, the CPM is cheap. What about setting up some metrics and goals for your PR program? Perhaps a PR dashboard of raw coverage (impressions, a bogus figure), mentions in targeted media (print, online, blogs, twitter, etc), and some related figure like inbound links? Otherwise how do you know when to fire your PR agency?

You can’t be the accountability guy and make exceptions. No babka for you this time.

By: Stuart Foster

Stuart Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:27:40 +0000

Great point Jon. PR and social media shouldn’t be trying to cut each other down. In fact both can be beneficial for the other.

What I would advocate is a reassessment of your demo, are your clients reading print anymore? Can you measure the success of a bill board? In today’s accountability/roi environment it doesn’t hurt to reassess your channels. Sometimes Print wins, sometimes social media does. It’s all a matter of having a flexible approach and a variety of channels through which to operate.

By: Jon Bornstein

Jon Bornstein — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:01:33 +0000

Needless to say, I couldn’t agree more. The point I come back to is this: “It isn’t just about traditional media. Social media is an important part of any integrated PR plan.” Bingo.

Public relations is about communicating with audiences. That has will always be important. What has changed are the channels available to do that: print, broadcast and radio in the old days along with social networks, Twitter, blogs, podcasts and others today.