Before they select a public relations agency or solo flyer, organizations should check out their help-wanted. If those ads want employees with old-line media contacts, forget it. That's not the way to get exposure, at least not cost-efficiently. Social media are. Results come low-cost, high-reach, fast and can wildly exceed expectations.
Today, in THE NEW YORK TIMES, Claire Cain Miller puts it out there, with no ambiguity:
"In the new world of social media, P.R. people must know hundreds of writers, bloggers and Twitter users instead of having six top reporters on speed dial."
That's already the standard operating procedure in cutting-edge communities like Silicon Valley. Those communities usually have no choice. They are full of startups, with more vision than money. To reach consumers, venture capitalists, influentials, supply chain partners, and even employees, they have to exploit social media. The more aggressively and imaginatively they do that the better the odds of commercial success.
In this digital era, it's becoming more and more common for how organizations present themselves to be the key variable in competitive victory or defeat. Way back in 2006 - light years in Internet time - German marketing professor Manfred Bruhn published "Guide to Integrated Communications." In it he documents that competition has become less and less about competition between products and services and more and more about competition for attention. Incidentally, Amazon.com is becoming as good at attention-getting as in Apple. Consequently, it could take in on in certain categories.
A useful read on this whole shift from concrete to invisible attributes is the 2008 book "Multichannel Marketing" by Internet expert Akin Arikan. It's especially helpful to confronting the tough measurement issues associated with social media.
Wearing my other hat - legal commentator- I predict that there will be individual as well as class-action lawsuits against public relations agencies which did not use the right and enough social media. Old-line strategies and tactics - e.g. relying on print and television - could likely be interpreted as downright malpractice.
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