The Public Relations BlogPR TrendsThe PR AgendaForget “Better PR”—The PR Industry Needs Education

Forget “Better PR” — The PR Industry Needs Education

Our industry must fix itself—via online PR education.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

You and I must save the PR industry.

PR is in con­stant flux, and our industry must evolve.
Yes, we recently missed our window.

But we can still fix ourselves — via online education.

Here we go:

The Digital Transformation of PR

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The Digital Transformation of PR

The biggest chal­lenge in mod­ern pub­lic rela­tions is the con­stantly chan­ging media land­scape. With the pro­lif­er­a­tion of social media, the rise of fake news, and the decline of tra­di­tion­al journ­al­ism, it can be dif­fi­cult for organ­isa­tions to con­trol the spread of inform­a­tion and pro­tect their reputations. 

When Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge pub­lished Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR in 2009, it pro­posed how PR should embrace the digit­al-first media land­scape and elev­ate our pro­fes­sion to new heights. 1Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. … Continue read­ing

Public rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als must be stra­tegic and pro­act­ive in their approach and must be able to adapt to new tech­no­lo­gies and plat­forms to com­mu­nic­ate with their pub­lics effectively. 

The authors argue that earli­er paradigms are mostly inad­equate in address­ing the needs of a 21st Century in which com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy is cre­at­ing rap­id glob­al­iz­a­tion while it is dan­ger­ously exacer­bat­ing the ten­sions of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. Through a crit­ic­al dis­cus­sion of pri­or assump­tions and paradigms in pub­lic rela­tions schol­ar­ship, the authors under­line the need for pub­lic rela­tions to revital­ize and bring its body of know­ledge into the 21st Century. The authors pos­it and dis­cuss how the com­munity-build­ing the­ory ori­gin­ally espoused by Kruckeberg and Starck (1988) and mod­i­fied in sub­sequent schol­ar­ship can provide a viable depar­ture point toward devel­op­ing new approaches to research about and prac­tice of pub­lic rela­tions that can take into account the dynam­ic envir­on­ment wrought by changes in com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy.”
Source: Public Relations Review 2Valentini, C., Kruckeberg, D., & Starck, K. (2012). Public rela­tions and com­munity: A per­sist­ent cov­en­ant. Public Relations Review, 38(5), 873 – 879. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​p​u​b​r​e​v​.​2​0​1​2​.​0​6​.​001

The biggest chal­lenge in PR is ensur­ing that our pro­fes­sion keeps up with new com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy and stays valu­able and rel­ev­ant as a busi­ness function.

Learn more: PR Must Adapt (Or Die)

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

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We Had Our Window (But Missed It)

After the dot-com bubble in 2000 – 2001, the inter­net slowed down. Social media emerged with behemoths like Facebook, foun­ded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. Their social engin­eer­ing aimed to con­nect people rather than turn them into online buy­ing machines.

For a good num­ber of years, inter­net mon­et­isa­tion pro­gressed slowly. We got to exper­i­ence the Hippie Web (2005 – 2015) revolving around earned and owned media. It was a golden oppor­tun­ity for PR to gain trac­tion in a space dom­in­ated by two-way com­mu­nic­a­tion, rela­tion­ships, and trust circles. 3Silfwer, J. (2012, January 22). The Hippie Web is Dead (2005 – 2015). Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​h​i​p​p​i​e​-​w​eb/

The win­dow of earned-owned suprem­acy was nev­er going to stay open forever. One and a half dec­ades after the dot-com bubble, the Money Web (2015 – present) began to gain momentum. On the inter­net today, everything is mar­ket­ing — except per­haps for Wikipedia and a few remain­ing journ­al­ists not hid­ing behind pay­walls. 4Silfwer, J. (2012, September 8). Enter the Money Web (2016 – Present). Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​o​n​e​y​-​w​eb/

We had a win­dow. We missed it.

How Marketing Kicked Our PR Ass

Today, SEO (like SEM) is con­sidered a form of mar­ket­ing instead of earned and owned communication.

And the list goes on:

  • There’s inbound mar­ket­ing, not inbound com­mu­nic­a­tions.
  • There’s email mar­ket­ing, not email com­mu­nic­a­tions.
  • There’s con­tent mar­ket­ing, not con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions.
  • There’s growth mar­ket­ing, not growth com­mu­nic­a­tions.

Make no mis­take about it — this is a PR fail­ure of epic pro­por­tions.
Doesn’t the PESO mod­el make it clear­er? 5Silfwer, J. (2012, April 13). The Peso Model: Paid, Earned Shared, and Earned Media. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​e​s​o​-​m​o​d​el/

Paid online media has its fair share of chal­lenges, but a pro­found lack of PR know­ledge is caus­ing mar­keters real head­aches. This is no mys­tery: online mar­keters mainly deal with earned and owned media. Still, they derive their way of think­ing from mar­ket­ing perspectives.

Sorry for being blunt: on the inter­net, the paid media mind­set is just tac­tic­al icing on a stra­tegic cake, a wel­come boost when everything else is in work­ing order.

As mar­keters, they know how to push products and ser­vices.
But they lack basic PR knowledge.

Marketers will protest. And then they will cel­eb­rate a 2% con­ver­sion rate without giv­ing the oth­er 98% a single thought.

And it gets worse.

The Generational Disconnect in PR

Organisations are left with impossible choices with many new digit­al indus­tries and spe­cial­isa­tions. What should an organ­isa­tion do?

Having truck­loads of agen­cies adds com­plex­ity and kills ROI. Hiring an army of in-house spe­cial­ists causes bloat — and kills ROI.

The out­come? Marketing depart­ments keep doing what they do best: push­ing mar­ket cam­paigns to sell online and off­line products and ser­vices. Everything else? Everything else is left in a big dirty pile on the com­mu­nic­a­tion department’s door­step. And it’s a mess.

No won­der com­mu­nic­a­tion depart­ments world­wide struggle with digit­al trans­form­a­tion issues: Fresh PR hires from school haven’t been taught the first thing inbound strategies, con­ver­sion tac­tics, or rank­ing factors. When com­mu­nic­a­tion depart­ments look out­side the organ­isa­tion for spe­cial­ists, they find … legions of mar­keters. It’s one big disconnect.

I con­stantly hear young­er pro­fes­sion­als dis­reg­ard seni­or ones because “they don’t under­stand TikTok or Twitch.” Conversely, seni­or pro­fes­sion­als dis­reg­ard young­er ones since “they don’t under­stand the fun­da­ment­als of cor­por­ate communication.”

We’re quickly los­ing know­ledge and prac­tic­al skills at both ends.

Save the PR Industry Now

The PR industry must save itself.
And there’s only one way for­ward — education.

However, tra­di­tion­al edu­ca­tion is slow and time-con­sum­ing. The dynam­ics of the online media land­scape will have changed many times before PR stu­dents get their hands on a rel­ev­ant text­book. And we can’t expect seni­or pro­fes­sion­als to quit their jobs and return to school for years.

PR does have a bright future still. 

With many AI break­throughs fast approach­ing, the inter­net will reward com­mu­nic­at­ors who can lever­age earned and owned chan­nels to build online audi­ences. If we want to mani­fest change, the edu­ca­tion­al respons­ib­il­ity falls heav­ily on us all. 

Digital PR spe­cial­ists must share what they do, how they do it, and why. Even if that means shar­ing their best secrets for which they typ­ic­ally charge good money.

As for every­one in the PR industry, sup­port the cre­at­ors when great online PR courses start to pop up every­where. Share their work. Invest in your­self.

Mark my words: it must begin now:

  • Create digit­al PR courses. If you’re a digit­al PR spe­cial­ist, share your pas­sion and know­ledge. Educate your network.
  • Invest in digit­al PR courses. Your sup­port and con­tinu­ous feed­back are crit­ic­al factors ensur­ing a bright future for our industry.

Consider shar­ing my pub­lic rela­tions blog with oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tion and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als. If you have ques­tions (or want to retain my PR ser­vices), please con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

PR Resource: The PESO Model

PESO Model - Doctor Spin - The PR Blog
The PESO mod­el in pub­lic relations.
Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The PESO Model

The PESO mod­el divides the media land­scape into four dif­fer­ent media chan­nel types: 

  • Paid chan­nels include advert­ising, spon­sor­ships, ambas­sad­or col­lab­or­a­tions etc.
  • Earned chan­nels include news art­icles, influ­en­cer endorse­ments, word-of-mouth etc.
  • Shared chan­nels include social media brand posts, accounts, SERP vis­ib­il­ity etc.
  • Owned chan­nels include news­let­ters, web­sites, pub­lic­a­tions for intern­al or extern­al use etc.

Don Bartholomew, vice pres­id­ent of digit­al research at Fleishman Hillard, presen­ted a ver­sion of the PESO mod­el in 2010. According to PR blog­ger and PR meas­ure­ment expert Heather Yaxley, this is likely to be the earli­est men­tion of the model:

PR Industry | The PR Agenda | Doctor Spin
The PESO mod­el. Source: PRConversations.

In 2013, PR blog­ger Gini Dietrich pop­ular­ised the PESO mod­el on her blog, Spin Sucks:

In June 2013, Gini Dietrich presen­ted the first iter­a­tion of the PESO mod­el you may recog­nise in a blog post: The Four Different Types of Media. It was fol­lowed in August by the post Mobile Marketing: Use the Four Media Types in Promotion, where she talked about integ­rat­ing paid, earned, owned, and shared.”
Source: PRConversations​.com 6Yaxley, H. (2020, June 28). Tracing the meas­ure­ment ori­gins of PESO. PRConversations​.com. https://​www​.prcon​ver​sa​tions​.com/​t​r​a​c​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​m​e​a​s​u​r​e​m​e​n​t​-​o​r​i​g​i​n​s​-​o​f​-​p​e​so/

Learn more: The PESO Model: Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned Media

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

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PR Resource: The Electronic Age

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The Electronic Age

Human cul­ture is often described based on our access to pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies (i.e. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age). 

According to Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication Theory, a bet­ter ana­lys­is would be to view soci­et­al devel­op­ment based on the prom­in­ence of emer­ging com­mu­nic­a­tions technologies.

Marshall McLuhan - Cambridge University - Digital-First
Marshall McLuhan at Cambridge University, circa 1940.

McLuhan sug­gests divid­ing human civil­isa­tion into four epochs:

  • Oral Tribe Culture. Handwriting marks the begin­ning of the end of the Oral Tribe Culture. The Oral Tribe Culture per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Manuscript Culture. Printing marks the begin­ning of the end of the Manuscript Culture. The Manuscript Culture per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Gutenberg Galaxy. Electricity marks the begin­ning of the end of the Gutenberg Galaxy. The Gutenberg Galaxy per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Electronic Age. Today, we reside in the Electronic Age. Possibly, we haven’t exper­i­enced the begin­ning of this age’s decline yet.

The Gutenberg Galaxy is a land­mark book that intro­duced the concept of the glob­al vil­lage and estab­lished Marshall McLuhan as the ori­gin­al ‘media guru’, with more than 200,000 cop­ies in print.”
Source: Modern Language Review 7McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al and lin­guist, I sub­scribe to the concept of the Electronic Age. The point is that soci­ety is unlikely to revert to the Gutenberg Galaxy.

Thus, digit­al-first is the way for pub­lic rela­tions, too.

Read also: Digital-First is the Way

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

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ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. https://​www​.amazon​.com/​d​p​/​0​1​3​7​1​5​0​6​9​5​?​t​a​g​=​p​r​2​0​0​f​-​2​0​&​c​a​m​p​=​1​4​5​7​3​&​c​r​e​a​t​i​v​e​=​3​2​7​6​4​1​&​l​i​n​k​C​o​d​e​=​a​s​1​&​c​r​e​a​t​i​v​e​A​S​I​N​=​0​1​3​7​1​5​0​6​9​5​&​a​d​i​d​=​0​2​J​7​6​Y​W​6​R​9​G​X​V​R​C​C​J​J​M0&
2 Valentini, C., Kruckeberg, D., & Starck, K. (2012). Public rela­tions and com­munity: A per­sist­ent cov­en­ant. Public Relations Review, 38(5), 873 – 879. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​p​u​b​r​e​v​.​2​0​1​2​.​0​6​.​001
3 Silfwer, J. (2012, January 22). The Hippie Web is Dead (2005 – 2015). Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​h​i​p​p​i​e​-​w​eb/
4 Silfwer, J. (2012, September 8). Enter the Money Web (2016 – Present). Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​o​n​e​y​-​w​eb/
5 Silfwer, J. (2012, April 13). The Peso Model: Paid, Earned Shared, and Earned Media. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​e​s​o​-​m​o​d​el/
6 Yaxley, H. (2020, June 28). Tracing the meas­ure­ment ori­gins of PESO. PRConversations​.com. https://​www​.prcon​ver​sa​tions​.com/​t​r​a​c​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​m​e​a​s​u​r​e​m​e​n​t​-​o​r​i​g​i​n​s​-​o​f​-​p​e​so/
7 McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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