Why I'm blogging again. (Part 2)

I decided to start blogging again because I was tired of listening to people tweet complaints about PR people. On twitter and marketing blogs, it's almost become a meme to bash PR people. Hating on PR, is the new black.

The gripes about PR people range from: bad pitches ("they pitched my blog and they've clearly never read it!"), to inauthenticity in the field or *as* a field (my friend Beth Harte struck a chord on the latter), to my own complaint of SM PR folks doing nothing but shilling on twitter.

Let's talk about PR and shilling.

First, let me disclose PR has been my career. I worked for NYC PR agencies for 11 years, on both the account side and media. The majority of my experience was spent in Media, where I focused on national broadcast and print. Because I worked in Media, I was responsible for generating or shaping the creative/programs that we sold into clients because my department was also setting the media goals and at the end of the program, we were accountable for those goals.

In 2005, I transitioned from VP Media to VP of Emerging Media at Marina Maher Communications (where I spent 8.5 great years), established and led a new department offering all agency clients "new media" services. I still generated creative, set media goals, and led execution but my focus was in new or social media.

In 2006, I moved in-house to a marketing organization to set up shop & lead social media there. Same responsibilities. In 2007, I joined creative indie ad agency, Red Tettemer, to again, set up shop & lead social media. Eventually, I assumed the responsibilities for our in-house PR practice as well. It was a natural addition to my SM job - SM platforms either support or are part of the PR approach and I had a decade plus experience in traditional PR.

I've always worked in consumer product PR, now consumer product advertising, so I'm speaking to those types of clients, not B2B or IR. I've also been always been at creative shops with household name clients, so I've been lucky enough to work with Brand teams consisting of the best marketers in the world (Hi P&G, Amazon.com, Coca-Cola, and J&J - all former clients) with decent budgets to move the needle.

That said, many of the basic PR tactics that SM people complain about today (bad press releases, mass pitches w/o research, outdated press lists) weren't part of our scope of work.

In my world of PR, we learned a client's business, did research/reviewed all the other marketing materials (packaging, R&D, advertising (creative & media plan), promotion, product launch timing), established PR objectives tied to reaching the BUSINESS goals of our clients, developed strategies that would help us reach our objectives/goals, spent time developing hot creative achievable within budget, soft sounded those creative ideas with media "friends" to ensure they were bookable or "mediable" (e.g. - would be something they'd cover) and developed achievable/measurable goals. After the client and sometimes other agencies aligned with our ideas and approach, THEN we did the work.

My approach never included: "draft press release," "develop press list," "pitch bloggers," "byline articles,"etc. Those things are PR basics. They're nuts and bolts. Most of them are ways of the old world. That's not PR in my world. Those are support tactics to help you complete the PR program; teeny tiny pieces that make up the bigger picture. The PR part for me, was always the IDEA. The "happening". The "thing" we created that told the story for the Brand, that provided value for the consumer, that interested media enough to cover it, that got people excited enough to talk about it and be proud to be a supporter or excited enough to be a new customer.

It saddens me that many people are perceiving PR as this DIY profession requiring no skills. In part, it's a Catch 22. One of the reasons PR is so valuable to a company, service or product is because it's relatively low cost in comparison to advertising or promotion/special events. Also, PR's low operational cost is appealing to untrained/inexperienced people who see it as an easy field to break into and make money as a consultant. Because there is little to no cost of entry, and little to no accreditation required, any Tom, Dick or Mary can jump in and call themselves a PR person, much like SM.

Those people, are doing a disservice a to PR as a whole. The people who segue to PR from other professions or having had no profession, are abusing the trust and investment of clients seeking prudent PR counsel.

To truly learn and understand the world of PR, I believe you must work at a reputable PR agency at least once. Why an agency vs. an in-house marketing department? Because at an agency, they live and breathe PR. A corp marketer's time is spent divided among the marketing disciplines (PR, Adv, Promotion) and usually, they are managing the agencies/people who are in the trenches doing the executions. There is a lot of practical experience you earn at an agency that you just won't learn in-house because the agency shields the client from the minutiae - that's part of the agency's job. Also, b/c a PR agency is focused ONLY on PR and not stretched like an in-house marketer covering all marketing disciplines for the Brand, you get a deeper dive into the practice and techniques. Last, at an agency you have the opportunity to work with other professionals of all levels of experience in this specific field. Those professionals are usually very smart because let me tell you, the PR agency world is lean and mean. If you're not producing, the agency cannot and will not carry your dead weight. It's do or die.

I urge people interested in getting into PR, regardless of their age, to intern or work at a reputable PR agency. To research reputable PR agencies, try: PRSA, PR Week or The Holmes Report to name a few.

And if you have questions about PR or getting into the biz, lmk.