#Communications and #Marketing friends, I have a bone to pick with Media Relations. Traditionally seen as the cornerstone of #PR, Media Relations is, IMO, the living fossil of our profession. It’s time we bid it farewell and replace it with a new approach. In this week’s newsletter, I bring out my soapbox and lay out my argument for putting this part of our profession out to pasture and what we should do to replace it. This edition veers away from my normal newsletter approach—it’s all my voice, my opinions, with no additional insights from my guests on The Trending Communicator. I’m saving that for next week ?? It’s a long one, and I encourage you to read it, but here’s the tl;dr summary: ? Traditional media relations is becoming less effective. ? For most businesses, traditional media relations no longer provides sufficient ROI. ? We need to evolve from "Media Relations" to "Earned Attention." ? AI tools are automating many media relations tasks, freeing communicators to focus on strategy and audience insights. ? Change must come from within the communications profession Take a look, give it some thought, and let me know if you agree, disagree, violently disagree, or have another take to share. Happy reading! #CommunicationsStrategy #EarnedMedia #PR #MediaRelations
Dan - a worthy topic and analysis. Like you, I share the same sentiment. There still remain the "traditional" and highly influential media outlets that matter, but the fragmentation and blistering media cycles (read shrinking attention spans) create massive challenges to the "old" model. I like you idea of "attention awareness and also advocate for volume (heretical on some levels but sometimes the only way to break through). It's also about "merchandising" and re-distribution of coverage across owned channels and networks. My challenge is finding the right measurement and analytics (a tale as old as time in our industry). Sure, social media can be measured (impressions [whatever that is], engagement, and followers). But these still feel light to me. How do we truly identify ROI? There are some interesting tools coming along that use AI tp sift through the on-line world to identify "impact" .....e.g., Reddit chatter, X ripple effect, etc. and capture the totality of the concentric impact from a "story." I find an efficient snapshot of how to measure the impact is valuable, even if the story is not from a main stream media piece. Happy to discuss further. Thank you again for a provocative, and IMO accurate, insight into PR.
It's an interesting take, Daniel Nestle. Certainly media relations, even when done very well, in isolation and not part of a broader, holistic communications strategy isn't as impactful as it was a couple of decades ago. But I think mature comms functions and agencies have long learned to more effectively measure the impact of media beyond hits, impressions or, god forbid, AVE. Many of my clients can easily map back their marketing KPIs - traffic to their sites, inbound leads and conversions - to well placed media hits. For both corporate and personal LinkedIn pages, posts highlighting media placements usually have much better than average engagement. While trust in media at large has declined, at least for financial services and b2b, trades staffed by smart, plugged in journalists regularly produce articles that have the capacity to influence the fortunes of the companies that operate in the space. And dare I say that for any challenger brand coming to market or company launching a new strategy or product, passing the smell test of reporters and editors at top tier publications and credible trades is a stronger barometer of the credibility of your messaging among prospective clients than any other channel.
"Earned Attention" is a pretty good term. We've shifted our messaging from "we put you in the press" to "we put you in the press to build trust and accelerate marketing outcomes." At the end of the day, earned media/media relations is a single tool that makes the other tools of surround-sound marketing & branding more impactful. But by itself...it just hangs out in the ether.
Interesting thoughts, Dan. Lots (for me) to unpack. Here's what I'm missing in some of the shift that you're describing, though: Is there still an arbiter? In the new attention economy, and the direct-to-influencer pipeline, is there still someone between the message and receiver, someone skeptical/informed/impartial enough, to challenge the messenger's claims, promises, wildly ambitious/optimistic narratives? These have traditionally been the roles of reporter/writer/editor. Not to say they've always been good at it (plenty of historical evidence to the contrary), but this gate-keeping, for lack of a better word, has typically given traditional media its validity. Perhaps that's all breaking down before our eyes, but I don't yet see a viable replacement. Authenticity isn't just chatting up your audience with vibes, but answering challenges with transparency and conviction, right? Good post.
You think influencers on TikTok are a valid replacement for actual journalists and you want AI to write and pitch news? ?? Yeah...no.
"Executives and Boards will question the ROI of investing in traditional media coverage, but will continue to use media coverage as a KPI for evaluating their communications teams." - you hit the nail on the head. Now, the 1 million dollar question is: how do we structure a new set of KPIs that better align to an audience-centric approach to PR?
Good luck finding a journalist who has time for "relations"! In my experience, they are extremely busy and if you can't help them file a story today, then it's a waste of time - and actually damaging to the relationship - to try and get their time and attention.
Fascinating. We did dance with this at my previous employer in Canada. We learned that our own channels got as much traffic as traditional media and started focusing more on brand journalism. I think more orgs should think this way.
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1 个月I've had debates about this topic before....some folks who might be interested in my latest take: Daniela Stawinoga-Carrington, John Short, Dan Lochmann, Ashley Trager Chauvin, David Armano, Gini Dietrich, Daniel Gaynor, Ethan McCarty, Megan Noel, David H. Rosen, Gay Flashman among many others