PR tune kya kiya???

A renowned senior editor had once written about the recent trend of PR that agencies are trying to engage in. As per him, PR has come down to the agency claiming an achievement when a certain news of the organisation or brand gets released in an online publication and are read by only 3 individuals: the editor of the newspaper, the PR agency and the brand/organisation.

It is a fact in today’s world. Customers are happy if their story is published in any online portal. They do not even check the traffic that the portal has. In some cases, the portal gets traffic when the customer shares the URL of the story on their handles!

The fun does not end here.?

The recent trend of paid syndicated feeds of organisation needs is making it more interesting. The agency scribes an article and submits it to a paid syndicated feed. It is then picked up by multiple online portals.

Voila!!! The customer gets a report of them featuring in around 10-15 media portals! “Great job done, my PR friend. You have made us popular overnight!”?

Most of the customers miss a disclaimer as below, normally put up by well-known media houses. This one is from Business Standards.?

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

While a lot of followers congratulate you on social media, here are the issues:

1) To an experienced professional or investor, it is nothing but a ‘paid PR’ initiative.?There is hardly any credibility, as the media has washed their hands off with the disclaimer. The smaller ones may not put a disclaimer, as they are too insignificant to heed that if paid PR news broadcasts are not marked as sponsored content, it can lead to legal issues, including regulatory fines. The investor community is well aware of the complex landscape of advertising rules and disclosure requirements.

2) Once you get into paid PR,?the editorial wing of the bigger media houses may not give you any space in the serious news segments. Their marketing wing will exercise its clout to stop them, as they lose revenue. No points for guessing who wins such battles!

3) If the same story (and all of them having similar text content) is published by multiple portals?Google search results will have the first page (or even second) filled with the same story. So the other news articles of the organisation go back into a dungeon, which no one will have the patience of digging out.

4) And in the long-term the very reason you want to do this also gets nullified.?While paid PR can temporarily boost SEO rankings, it's not a long-term solution.?Search engines like Google are continually refining their algorithms to identify and demote low-quality or sponsored content. This can result in a loss of organic visibility. Your agency loves this as they get recurring SEO business to keep the ranks from falling.

Now, why do the portals put up such articles? For the bigger ones, they need content to maintain their ranks in the digital media, like Google search results. To the smaller ones, the organisation shares the links and gets them traffic. Sounds more of a Win-Win for the media, than the brand paying for the exercise???

And why am I writing this article? The fact is that these paid PR vendors are making it murky. Till the consumers become savvy about identifying paid content, they have started thinking that all media publications are paid. News stories are being regarded as an advertisement, and the readers approach them with scepticism.

This scepticism can extend to the brand itself, making consumers question the authenticity of its messaging, and ultimately corrodes the trust on the brand.?

In short, it is also becoming tough for those who perform through the genuine route of PR, following the mandated code of conduct.?

After all, tools cannot create relations, even with the public!

#publicrelations #mediarelease #brandmanagement

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