5. PR 2.0 - Stewards of the Storyline

The primary role of the Public Relations practitioner in the Influence 1.0 era was to “influence the influencers.” In the dawning age of Influence 2.0, the PR pro’s efforts are more dispersed and transparent: the publicist becomes an active participant in the diverse conversations that affect their clientele.  They collaborate in a dialogue with influencers of all sizes and – at times – become influencers themselves. 

The invisible levers of power have been revealed, smashed to bits… and are now up for grabs.   

Many of the disruptive themes espoused in this e-book have been described by various pundits as “threatening” to the PR professional.  But actually their communications skills have never been more valuable:  PR pros are renowned for their ability to juggle multiple projects and for their ability to “spin” a negative into a positive.  As the power to influence global conversations is pushed to the people, the PR industry is being asked to interact with an exponentially-growing number of unpredictable stakeholders…what better climate can you imagine for these skills?

That’s not to say that there aren’t reasons for some angst.  Influence 2.0 is a scary proposition to the PR pro:

• Workloads are increasing (“How can I get a handle on all these new influencers? How do I approach these capricious individuals?”)
• Angst is on the rise (“Is it really appropriate for me to converse with these bloggers?  If so, for how long?  What are the risks?  What are the rules?”); and, 
• The “message control” that PR pros were accustomed to wielding is eroding more quickly than anticipated (“What should I say? What is safe?”). 

The strategic counsel of yesterday has become nothing more than guesswork: we don’t know how our carefully-crafted words will be received when they are absorbed, interpreted and re-mixed by an audience that literally scoffs at professional editorial rules.  In the Influence 2.0 world, rules are for suckers.

And that’s the very essence of the PR industry’s opportunity in the Influence 2.0 world: it’s a good time to break with tradition.  PR 2.0 is about content, connection, context.  The PR pro has been granted the power to become the “steward of the storyline.” 
 
When focused on “influencing the influencers,” PR reps were often perceived as mincing sycophants by the media elite.  Nowadays, through the clever use of Social Media tools, a good PR person can become a true and equal partner to everyone in the mediasphere – both professional journalists and bloggers. 

A “steward of the storyline” is a friend, a collaborator, a helpful ally to anyone interested in the client’s story.  This PR 2.0 pro can use a social bookmarking tool like del.icio.us  to assemble a vast collection of links about their client and industry; annotate each link with relevant notes; and, tag each entry to facilitate the media’s research needs. 

For example, for one client, SHIFT Communications is using del.icio.us to bookmark daily articles about “Widgets.”  Each entry is not only tagged by publication, author, etc., but is also tagged as either “Widgets-good” or “Widgets-bad,” to designate its tone.  Our client’s top execs also agreed to insert their own thoughts into the del.icio.us entries’ “Notes” fields. 

Thus, anyone in the media who’s curious about positive and/or negative opinions about “Widgets” has an instant-on resource, including the clients’ quick spin on the “Widget news of the day.”  Get the reporter/blogger to subscribe to this del.icio.us page’s RSS feed, and they get a daily dose of the client’s thought leadership in the “Widget” arena.

That’s not just PR.  That’s a way to help all comers navigate an industry narrative – and it is enabled for the first time through the toolsets of Web 2.0.

Now think about the humble press release.  It hasn’t changed much since the days of PR industry father Edward Bernays.  Yet today many voices have called for a fundamental re-think of its archaic format.  Two big factors contribute to this call:  leveraging the new work habits of the increasingly web-savvy media; and, the fact that, “Press releases have surpassed trade journals as the leading source of information for knowledge workers” (as noted in a recent survey).

Amazing.  Thanks to the ubiquity and ease-of-use of the World Wide Web and RSS, a tool intended for a rarified group of professional journalists has become a trusted, direct-to-consumer media channel of its own.  If you don’t get coverage in the traditional media, get a few friends to “digg” your release and it could become a news story all its own…which in turn might lead a more traditional journalist to “dig deeper.”

To facilitate this movement, the press release itself will become more accessible to a more varied audience.  The Social Media release can be augmented with multimedia content that jazzes-up writers’ posts and articles.  It can contain client logos… executive headshots… a product demo via podcast or video…all in one spot.

But it’s not just about multimedia.  The PR 2.0 press release must cater to its true audiences – not just to the lowest common denominator. 

For example, the technical jargon in a semiconductor company’s press releases might get more technical – an acknowledgement that the data is more often scrutinized by an audience of highly credential engineers than by mainstream journalists. 

And the press release that goes out on behalf of a consumer products company might include swatches of multimedia content that are specially intended for bloggers.  In the past, clients fretted about copyright protections, but the client of tomorrow will consider it a victory when bloggers re-craft corporate brand imagery and promote it on their own, in a way that’s meaningful to numerous niche audiences.  Look for terms like “slivercasting” to enter the PR lexicon soon.

The multitudes are rising.  They are not happy with 500 channels of information: they want 5,000,000.  With these additional channels comes a multitude of information which individuals need to “weed through,” as they will only expose themselves to that which is meaningful to them: one man’s garbage IS another man’s gold.  PR 2.0 practitioners can help clients to identify, monitor and communicate with these new voices and their respective audiences.  Richard Edelman, chief of the world’s largest independent PR firm, infamously noted that in the era of Influence 2.0, “[Journalists] are not god anymore.”  While some Old School types were put off by the flap, Edelman was merely pointing out – rightfully – that the creaky model that forced corporations to use PR and advertising to reach consumers was crumbling.  Corporations can now establish a direct rapport with their stakeholders. 

For example, in the Influence 2.0 world, a bad or inaccurate story that appears in the traditional media can be directly responded to via blogs:  the corporate blog can diplomatically point out errors of reporting; the corporate marketers can reach out to sympathetic outside bloggers and humbly petition for their support; the CEO can post a podcast where she pleads her case in person to the wider community. 

If the bad article escalates into a crisis, the corporate marketer might decide that the topic is too-hot for the day-to-day corporate blog: they might decide to create a purpose-built blog site devoted to the “firememe.”  The crisis-oriented blog allows the company’s spokespeople to address a specific issue directly – with the audience that cares about it – while allowing day-in-the-life stuff to continue uninterrupted at the corporate website/blog.  (Why go out of your way to alert customers and prospects to a crisis?  If they are interested in the topic, they’ll find the special blog soon enough through Google or Technorati.)

It might not work…it might make a bad situation worse.  But it might not.  And you might score points for being bold enough to damn the torpedoes and lay out all the facts.  Remember, in the Influence 2.0 scheme of things, “rules are for suckers.”

These are just a few examples from the “leading edge” of PR 2.0.  There’s a “bleeding edge,” too. 

For example, we’re working on a project that asks residents of the Second Life videogame to vie for prizes based on who can create the best machinima demo of our client’s product.  (Machinima are short cult “films” created by using video game avatars as “actors.”)  The winning entry will be available in the client’s Second Life hang-out for viewing by random passers-by; posted to gaming and consumer-generated video sites like YouTube; and, submitted to traditional journalists who are interested in a demo of the technology.  (Why be boring?  We’d rather show off a cool, user-created demo than a staid professional set-piece.)

Risky?  Yes!  That’s the point.

Opportunities spring from chaos.  As Sir Winston Churchill noted, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  PR pros are natural-born optimists.  They are leaping forward to embrace the tools and techniques of PR 2.0.  With everything moving so fast right now, sure, mistakes will be made.  Thankfully, for the first time, mistakes are okay, too.