I was intrigued to read a piece today by Mark Hillary on ComputerWeekly.com asking the question, “Can Twitter replace trade PR?“. It seemed to generate a bit of chat in Twitter, so I thought was worth a quick blog post.
Mark writes:
I was recently asked by a well-known firm if they thought Twitter could replace their trade PR strategy. I asked, ‘what is your trade PR strategy?’ They explained to me that they pay a retainer to a PR firm to send releases out to the trade press.
As Crocodile Dundee might have said: ‘call that a strategy?’
The trade journalists are almost all active online, especially using discussion tools like Twitter, where trade gossip can bounce around and be shared The trade journalists often talk about what they are writing on in advance of actually writing it… Many will use the Twitter community to ask for quotes or comments on a story You can easily monitor a list of trusted journalists, analysts, and other contacts and comment on what they are doing, or you can monitor the discussion on different topics where you have a particular interest
Yes, I’m afraid that for so many agencies that’s still par for the course. Whether or not it’s the agencies’ fault (and as Mark acknowledges, we’re not all like it), there’s often still a resistence to doing thing differently all round. The thing is that a few years ago the B2B and B2C tech markets had a bit of a wake up call. Dwindling ad revenues, smaller editorial teams, smaller mags and the inability to compete with the web for speed meant that the tech sector had to move with the times. Unfortunately many markets – particularly on the B2B side – haven’t followed suite. Yet.
Both the agencies and clients themselves – in markets such as retail, finance, law and manufacturing – aren’t necessarily hooked up to the likes of Twitter and Facebook or use blogs to get news and information, so they don’t see them as channels to market. I’m sure it’ll change, but it’s still a gradual process.
I think the role of the journalist is likely to change too. In time, I think they’ll move into one of two camps: the buzz reporter, responsible for churning through the news to keep us up to date with things that have just happened and the commentator/influencer (which people like Mark fall into), where they make their living through analysis and prompting debate. Is a press release the best way of getting through to these people? Probably not.
Actually, the role of PR people will change too; largely because these digital influencers will be more interested in hearing what executives have to say, rather than worry about going through the PR channel.
So, to answer Mark’s question, I’m not sure that Twitter will replace trade PR – it’ll add to it. But the days of the press release could soon be over. In time, they’ll just become SEO tools. I’m not sure journalists ever used website press rooms anyway. Have you seen one recently? They just look so old fashioned. They’ll still be used for financial PR for market announcements, but otherwise they’ll be replaced by blogs, YouTube channels, Facebook pages and so on. And of course Twitter.
