So PR is Extinct, Eh?

On the Web 2.0 Journal, Fuat Kircaali blogs:

...roughly 70% of today's PR firms with their traditional public relations and communications business structures will not survive the fast-approaching social media avalanche.

He further states that

ninety per cent of today's PR firms are still in business

in essence, because SEC rules still compel publicly held companies to release material information via press release or telephone conference call; but this will in all likelihood be changing shortly.

I, too, have blogged about the SEC's consideration of corporate websites (and by extension blogs) as acceptable means for publicly disclosing material information.

Within the same forum - indeed almost in the same breath - Mr. Kircaali does some chest beating for Ulitzer, Sys-Con's content syndication platform, and promotes it as tool that can lead forward thinking agencies and their clients to salvation.

I am in the tech PR business and would never use my forum to deride Sys-Con, an esteemed technology publishing brand.  Certainly Mr. Kircaali doesn't need me to point out that many have talked about the extinction of the tech trades.  I am sure he does not appreciate that kind of sentiment, and hopefully does not take lightly blaring headlines that herald the demise of an entire industry.

If you can get past the melodramatic headline  I believe he does make some good points.  For example, he says:

Tomorrow's (and I mean tomorrow, not the next decade) marketing game will be played on professional corporate blogging platforms. The companies with the largest number of well-read and respected corporate bloggers will win the marketing and propaganda games. Larger companies will need larger armies of corporate bloggers. The new job description of "professional corporate blogger" will be a very popular one.

If you think the PR industry is just about regurgitating news for public disclosure purposes then perhaps you will agree with Mr. Kircaali; if you understand that PR can be so much more, then you will strenuously disagree.

Comments

[Marcie Casas]

Being in the PR biz,Mr. Kircaali's post did get me hopping mad. But I'm sure that was his intention - to get the PR industry buzzing and drive awareness about his product. However, I do feel he missed the mark completely. Clearly, he doesn't understand PR. PR is much more than just news releases. At its heart, it's strategic planning at its best. I wrote more about my viewpoint here http://bit.ly/akoJr

@marciecasas
www.gdc-co.com/blog

[Jim Grandone]

If corporate bloggers must multiply to be winners of the game, I can envision total public confusion about what is a fact and what is an opinion. Some of the blogs I read, which have been posted by Google as news on its homepage, clearly are opinions. Such blurring of the line between fact and opinion is both a good argument for the print media, and by extension, good for the print element of public relations efforts.
As you noted, PR can be so much more. I see many existing PR firms catching up to the social media wave, and by doing so they are changing and adapting to the new market for information. I have posted press releases as blogs but as a former daily newspaper reporter, I make sure that what is stated as fact, actually is factual. Opinions can be included in quotes, because they represent opinions. But blogging is threatening to disrupt this balance between fact and opinion because the reader cannot fact check many blogs.
This is an issue that will continue to emerge as social media grows and blogs become accepted as "news."