Social Media: Advice to all PR agencies

we can haz comms profeshionils? kthx

Since I started #fixPR back in January I’ve had a lot of feedback on some of the tips I provided but I’ve also been hearing a similar theme in response

“We know we should but…”

I hate to get all Tony Robbins but… knowing and doing are completely different things. How do you help your agency get to grips with social media? Make it compulsory.

I used to be all soft & fluffy on this issue (honest) but it’s 2010 and I’m still seeing PRs uncomfortable with the word RSS. The only thing for it is a shift in agency culture.

Switch the daily ritual of reading the papers to reading online feeds and social bookmarking, create a simple social media policy and insist people use services like Twitter. Make it happen.

You might run into some resistance so I’ve scripted some handy responses:

Excuse 1:  “We don’t have time on top of everything else”

Internal Response: FFS. You’ll have all the time in the world in 2 years time when we’ve lost all our clients and are sat round here twiddling our thumbs. Would that be a more convenient time for you?

Actual Response: “Sure, but there’s actually some real time-saving benefits to getting social. For instance pulling in all our mainstream media into RSS readers cuts down on reading time, the team can collaborate more effectively on finding & sharing stories, we can even reduce our heaving Inboxes by using social bookmarking instead of sending links round the company on email.”

Excuse 2: “My client doesn’t want social media.”

Internal Response: Are you freakin’ kidding me? Aren’t you a media consultant? You should be helping them understand where it’s relevant to them and what’s worth doing and why.

Actual Response: “Maybe not today but we need to be educating them and moving them towards it in the future before some groovy digital agency swoops in and pitches them leaving them thinking ‘Why didn’t my PR agency tell me this?’”

Excuse 3: “I’ve read Twitter, I get it, I just don’t want to be using it personally.”

Internal Response: Yeah, that’s what my gran said, unfortunately I wouldn’t trust my gran to consult with clients after having ‘read a few of the twitters’ and I don’t trust you either.

Actual: “Hmm, yeah, I’d argue that as media professionals unfortunately we have to go above and beyond consumer understanding of media and really get to grips with features, etiquette, community etc. You don’t have to share your personal life, you could develop your professional profile online, our social media policy has some guidelines.”

Excuse 4: “We have a specialist digital team working on social media briefs.”

Internal response: Yeah, I saw that digital account exec sizing up your corner office the other day. Good luck with that.

External response: “Sure, and your skills and knowledge are still relevant but with online channels playing a bigger and bigger role in media consumption it would be good if we all had a decent base level of knowledge.”

Excuse 5: “I’m just not techie.”

Internal response: No sh*t. I saw you getting flustered with your Nokia 3310 but I’m sure even you use Google on a daily basis right?

External Response: “That’s OK, you don’t have to understand the techie bit behind how everything works, you just have to know how the average person uses it.”

Ok, so what I’ve written is a bit harsh and bit scary. Don’t get me wrong, no one knows how hard PRs work than me. I think what most PRs do is great and I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater and everything you know is useless. What I am saying is that I want to see you getting to grips with new media, socia media, digital, interactive marketing, whatever it is this thing is called.  No ifs no buts, you’re better than that.

[Image credit: captainsubtle]