Everyone in the world thinks they can do PR. Many even think they can do it well. It just happens to be one of those job fields in which people have trouble understanding just how much work goes into planning an event or getting your client on the 6 o’clock news. So here’s how you know whether or not you have the chops. My three PR Myths Debunked will help bring the old school practitioners up to speed, help teach the well-meaning youngsters and help weed out the posers who don’t know what they’re doing.
1. Public Relations is the same as Publicity. Seth Godin just posted a great article on this subject on his blog. Simply, publicity is getting ink or airtime. Yea! Clip!
Public Relations is the ability to get your message out across your communication channels, helping you to better connect with your audience. I will tell you when I started out I was the best there was at getting my client on the news. I had so many story ideas, I couldn’t keep them straight and I had good relationships with reporters so I knew they would cover them. Well once I had an idea so good, I pitched my client right out of the story! They didn’t include his quote in the package because I had lined up so many other third party sources. It was my fault because I didn’t prepare him with the messages he needed to convey that would have kept him in that package and made him and his practice look like a pro on TV. Hard lesson learned.
At Talk we are always proactively working to prepare our clients to make the most of these public relations (not publicity!) opportunities. Because as we say, an interview is just an opportunity to get your key messages our to your audience.
2. Media is your number one target. This is a very old school idea. But a hit that gets picked up on the front page of your local paper, circulation 100,000 is no match for a press release that gets picked up on Google News, page views 1,000,000. The Internet has made it possible for us to pitch our clients directly to their audience in addition to through the media. Because of this fact the way we tell our clients’ stories and the way we write and target our releases has changed as well. The new Bible at Talk is David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of PR and Marketing.” This is required reading for folks ready to ditch their old methods in exchange for newer and ultimately more effective ones.
3. Events are an effective public relations tool. Correction – events CAN be an effective public relations tool. Unfortunately many people get into the field of PR so then can plan events, and just wind up in over their heads. An event that wastes hours of your time and thousands of dollars from your marketing budget and accomplishes zero of your communication objectives is a failure.
Be wary of any public relations or marketing counselor who advises you to have an event for what you perceive is just for the sake of having an event. Instead, ask your counselor if they can come with a clever promotion that costs no money but brings them media attention. This is what we do best at Talk. One source of inspiration is Peter Shankman’s book, “Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts that Work and Why You Need Them.”
Photo by: Caruba
