“THE RISE AND FALL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS” – May 16, 2008
It is official.
Public relations is a deceased discipline in 2018.
The definition of public relations on wikipedia.google.org now reads “a marketing discipline [now defunct] practiced prior to the emergence of Web 3.0 in 2013.”
As a post-mortem, [we] looked through the archive to piece together why.
By 2008 social media was impacting nearly every brand. As a result, every discipline—including public relations– rushed to embrace the new medium. At the time PR was in its ascendancy, or so we thought. Social media prized authentic one-to-one conversation, and PR people are at the core conversationalists.
So, what went wrong?
First of all, the Internet went wrong. As more media moved online, communication became more transparent. Every online action –posting, viewing, subscribing, installing, sharing and downloading –resulted in the creation of public user data. Consequently, the ability to track, understand and use social media data became key to success in online communications. PR badly lacked these ‘quant’ skills having relied on instincts and schmoozing for 50 years.
The eco-system of social media is based on sharing, not pitching. Simply, Person A offers relevant content to person B, who in turn finds the content compelling enough to share with friends/fans/readers/community members. No one ever enjoyed being pitched, and now they could avoid it all together because information was more readily accessible. The advent of anti-PR filters instituted in 2008 by mavericks such as Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and Chris Anderson of Wired were the first nail in the coffin.
Lastly, the pendulum clearly swung toward content. Success in communications increasingly depended on the quality of the content and the integrity of the message. So it was no longer enough to just publicize content. Communicators also had to publish and produce more content. Sadly, PR lacked the knowledge of how to build APIs, syndicate content and create compelling online experiences. Dealing with smaller budgets than their advertising competitors, PR was ultimately squeezed out of the process altogether.
In my next column we will discuss the death of advertising for its failure to achieve anything close to authentic communication.
3 responses so far ↓
Ginny // June 7, 2008 at 1:06 am
Things definitely have changed with the internet. I think PR seems easier now. I think I wouldn’t mind a death in advertising, or maybe just a slow down of it!
Carl // June 8, 2008 at 9:02 pm
“By 2008 social media was impacting nearly every brand. As a result, every discipline—including public relations– rushed to embrace the new medium. ”
Which new medium? The social media medium?
The Death of PR? « Neil Robertson // June 13, 2008 at 6:04 am
[...] The Death of PR [...]