Why PR’s Homecoming may not be so sweet

For those of you who follow the PR Moment Blog you may have seen Ben Smith’s post last week about how many PROs are spending only around 50% of their time on media relations these days:

A couple of years ago the vast majority of PROs’ time was spent on media relations. I think most people believe media relations continues to dominate the average working day of PR execs, both those in house and at agencies. That said, in a recent straw poll on PRmoment.com, we asked PROs how much time they spent on media relations. To our surprise, you said only about 50%. Imagine looking the PR agency bosses of the 1990’s in the eye and saying that. You would have been out the door, and quick.

As I mentioned in today’s article on PR Moment, a lot of time is spent developing longer term campaign strategies, that all the more often these days are influencing the marketing directions of clients, far outside the boundaries of PR.

Holistic marketing and taking a 360 approach to client briefs is meaning more time is being spent by PROs developing engaging content for both the on and offline word, analysing conversations taking place in social media, and developing new and exciting “value exchanges” for journalists (be them citizen or paid) and social users.

The change is gradual at the moment, but particularly when engaging with social media influencers, traditional media relations (Press Release & Push Tactics) will not cut it, as these people are not used to (for now anyway) being pitched to. Hence it is no surprise to me that more time is taken up on these other elements of what @briansolis would call PR 2.0.

This has vast ramifications for the next generations of PROs coming through the ranks – as we saw from last weeks skills report from Major Players (See Ben Cotton’s interview with Edelman’s Marshall Manson on the topic here), many PROs are not embracing these new practices and the changing role of the PRO at the rate that the market demands. Those who want to succeed in this changing space need to adapt. And Fast.

A sign of the Times… but who will pay the price?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/05/the-times-raises-weekday-price-to-90p

The Times today will be hitting newshelves across the nation at the price of 90pence a copy… Questions start to rumble in my digital mind as we see yet another broadsheet upping the cover price to match the Telegraphs Q4 price rise.

So it begs to question,  if 2008 was the year the bank s collapsed, could 2009 finally see of an already long suffering print journalism industry, or at least kneecap a few fledgling titles? The Times’ Online web prescense (www.timesonline.co.uk) will surely keep the brand alive, long into the next decade (unless Murdoch’s cronies really do dessert him), but how much life is left for the print version?

Answers on a postcard…