In an interview between Dan Greenfield of Bernaisesource, and Brad Berens who is the executive editor of iMediaConnection, Berens touches on an excellent point about where the job of PR is going.
The job of the PR person just got a LOT harder. There is so much more to keep track of now. Technology can help — free Google alerts, Technorati, etc. — but it’s a tooth-and-nail fight to keep from being merely reactive.
Very true. The sad thing is that I don’t see a lot of PR pros outside the blogosphere understanding this. Many are still happy to continue on the status quo and relegate blogs to "just another website."
I think the most important takeaway of the interview for PR people is our changing role within an organization:
The best thing that people in your role can do is to manage UP, to educate CEOs, CMOs and COOs about how much chatter is going on. The PR folks need to integrate closely with marketing, as closely as they currently do with legal. That’s on the internal side.
Sure, as a PR person, YOU understand social media, blogs, the changing blah blah blah of PR, but if your CEO is still stuck in the old way of thinking, you’re much more likely to deal with crises – and with much higher stakes.
Maybe it’s because I started my career as a marketing guy, but I’ve always been of the mind that marketing and PR have to be on the same team – especially now that the line between the two is getting so blurry. We still each have our own tasks, but the overlap is getting bigger and bigger.
As much as it is our job to educate the public about the issues we are working with, it is our job to educate executives within the company about how PR looks now, and how it’s changing their jobs.
