Social media redefines PR

Many years ago I was a director of the London office of Burson-Marsteller one of the world’s leading PR companies. In those days we were in relentless pursuit of a handful of influential journalists and freelancers in the national and specialist press. OK we created varied programmes including facility visits, launches and one on ones with the CEO as well as press releases but the end result was the few column inches in the press cuttings book which hopefully delighted our client and meant we kept the account.

My – how things have changed. I was reminded of this when watching coverage of London fashion week. In the front row were the usual personalities whose attendance added huge interest and virtually guaranteed media attention. But hang on a minute. Who are these unknowns sitting right beside them? They are the bloggers and front row Tweeters whose influence in this and many other spheres of commercial life has exploded almost unnoticed by those oblivious to the impact of social media.

It is no wonder the conventional printed media is on the downturn. The bloggers and Tweeters have gathered together huge numbers of followers and their comments on a fashion collection can be ‘published’ before one can say Giorgio Armani.
The publicity lady at this particular collection was running around trying to satisfy bloggers, Twitter feeds and even the production of video clips which were available on Iphones 7 minutes after the first model had strutted down the catwalk. Incidentally those at the event were also able to buy the fashion from their Blackberries whilst the models were displaying the couture right in front of them.

Journalists not surprisingly have always liked things to be easy and with Google as their default browser page they have a window to any topic or company in the world. They too are monitoring this traffic for their stories and background. So our approach to PR has to change to take full advantage of this communications revolution. Have you got the message yet?

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