The PR field is a strange one. Any profession built on tailoring messages that a huge group of people will appreciate individually is bound to be tough and a little challenging to define. Balancing the needs of a company with the needs of the people it serves – while giving out just enough information to keep both happy - well, that’s a challenge. Just look at the state of the modern relationship.

Much like all media and communications (just to over-simplify a school of thought for a second) – one must understand the medium in order to understand what message can be sent through it and how this can be done. When the best way to speak to the public was through the traditional media, Public Relations was largely understood to be media relations. As explained by Chris Onderstall, from Fleishman-Hillard. 

“Historically PR has always had to deal with a range of gatekeepers (editors, publishers, celebrities, analysts etc.) with the advancement of new media the barriers for publishing have been lowered, anyone can publish.”

Which both means that individuals have more publishing power - and that PR peeps need to be aware of and in touch with all of these channels. Not only has the Internet cut out the middle man (in some cases), it has given the end receiver a channel through which to speak up. These are developments that should be ideal for the PR field – and indeed practitioners with an eye on the present have been involved in the evolution of this tool. Melissa Attree thinks that these changes are simply more in line with the true role of public relations: 

“So it’s gone full circle in that PR professionals now need to understand that they’re dealing with the ‘media’ on the one hand and 'the public' on the other.”

But what does this mean in practice? In a realm where PR professionals are skilled at creating good content, does it need to be disseminated through every digital channel? The general feeling seemed to be that while PR practitioners wouldn’t necessarily be the people “activating” a digital campaign, they do need to understand what is possible.

Sarah Rice from Sentient Communications pointed out that there has been a change in the channels available to PR, and that “without a sense of the options it is very difficult to consult in a meaningful way to client”.

It is here that the PR field can bring its knowledge to the table in order to more often take on a strategic and project management role. According to Catherine Luckhoff from MANGO-OMC only one thing matters in creating good online content; content needs to be relevant.

“…so gone are the days of lengthy and involved press releases with one or two visuals attached. Optimised copy and rich media content, such as video clips and audio files, now all form part of our tool box and considered for every campaign…knowing which content appeals to which market and in which format they prefer to receive it is key.”

Alex Myers, the Director of Manifest London, feels that this has had a number of significant effects on the industry. For one, he shared that the relationship between PR agents and journalists has changed: “There isn’t one technology journalist, in my experience (for example), who doesn’t prefer to be approached via Twitter”. With only 140 characters in which to pitch a story, Twitter also ensures that the essence of the story is clear and well communicated. Sarah Rice pointed out that that journalists now also have multiple channels through which to share their online presence. It’s also worth considering, as Chris Onderstall pointed out, that some bloggers want to be treated just like journalists – given that they can become centres of influence with a range of publishing tools.

While the understanding of PR evolves alongside the mediums through which it can be practiced, it must be noted that digital communications tools fall into a few different areas. It’s interesting to see how these evolve, with little doubt that great content will remain to be the element that makes the best use of the available channels.

 Thanks so much to the PR gurus for sharing their thoughts with me.

 Also check out:

• Measuring WebPR with Melissa Attree
• 5 Tips for Effective WebPR
• Engaging as a Company