30 Jul The Art of Relationship Building is Key to the Comms Industry
#FlockFriday: an ongoing series of weekly interviews with progressive, intelligent, knowledgeable and insightful communications professionals who want to address the issues in the industry and make a real difference to its reputation and its future. 1 topic, 6 questions, a number of thought leaders…
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Beth Carroll is one of the most social communications pros on Twitter and someone who truly understands what the social web is all about and how it integrates with conventional PR and marketing. As well as speaking regularly at industry functions, she organises networking events for the UK comms community and is co-organiser of Social Collective, the new, progressive social media conference focused on strategic integration. And she likes cats.
Q: PR/comms always used to be about building relationships with the media and with influencers; as client demands have increased, has the industry lost that ability and become too competitive and too task focused?
A: No, it’s simply evolved with technology. While the heyday of long PR lunches and cocktails at five may be a distant memory, the art of relationship building is still key to any comms professional. In a time pressured environment, for PRs and journalists alike, social media platforms have created a vehicle for us to streamline the networking process. Rather than reducing offline face time, we’re becoming more efficient in the way we communicate, helping us to stay in contact more regularly. Let’s not forget, with advertising budgets on the back-burner, journalists are increasingly overstretched so to maintain relationships, it’s important to be mindful of this.
Q: Is fear and/or a lack of understanding or knowledge responsible for the PR/comms industry not fully embracing new digital marketing tools such as Twitter and Facebook? And if so, what are we scared of?
A: It’s not so much a lack of understanding of the platforms themselves but the challenge of integrating social media in to agencies’ existing comms offerings. There are a lot of hurdles to jump before you can get buy in from clients and tackle their own fears; knowing how to measure campaigns effectively, understanding how to pitch a long tail strategy and demonstrating how to integrate social media in to an organisation. Agencies need to see social media as another communications channel, albeit one that needs to be approached differently, and trust their experience in strategic development can dovetail through. Getting a geek on the pay role doesn’t do any harm either.
Q: Digital media is changing the face of the communications industry and yet many CEOs and MDs in PR/comms agencies seem unwilling to learn the evolving skill sets needed to drive the industry forward. Do you feel that the onus is falling on individuals to take personal responsibility for their own learning and development in this area and, if so, is this a good or a bad thing?
A: Any business owner should value what they can learn from their staff so it’s not necessarily a negative if the integration of social media into an agency is not driven from the top. At Ash, I run a training session every fortnight to bring the entire agency up to speed on a particular topic within social. These sessions are attended by everyone from the intern to the MD and ensure we have a consistent knowledge base across the agency. As long as individuals are feeling empowered rather than unsupported, I see no problem with people taking some responsibility for their own personal development.
Q: The ‘new generation’ of PR/comms professionals, which is embracing the social web, appears to be far more collaborative and supportive than the more competitive and guarded old school. Do you feel that a chasm is emerging within the industry between the online community and those who are less progressive? And if so, what are the effects on the industry as a whole?
A: Those who have achieved success in the social space have done so by acknowledging they’re not specialists in everything and have drawn on others skill sets to share knowledge. The more you give and share, the more likely others are to support you when you have a question. Yes, this may go against the more guarded traditional approach but it is a shift which is transcending beyond the social media bubble. During the recent uncertain economical times, businesses that took a more forward thinking, collaborative approach were the ones who suffered the least.
Q: The PR/comms industry has a poor reputation for being ‘spin doctors’ and PR flacks. Who do you feel is best placed to build credibility, educate business owners and consumers, and change this reputation, and how do they go about it?
A: If a PR campaign truly works, the average consumer would not necessarily be aware what they have read has been driven by a PR campaign. It’s only when mistakes are made that the PRs get pulled up – no wonder there’s an existing preconception. Social media has gone some way to change this, offering a mechanism for their voice to be heard enabling them to garner respect. The ability to wave the communication wand in the right ways gives comms professionals a head start in the social media space, increasingly making them a force not to be overlooked.
Q: With regard to the competition between PR agencies, specialist digital agencies and full service marketing agencies, how do you think things will play out over the next five or ten years? And what will happen to the PR/comms industry if things don’t change?
A: A new specialist agency is born every day, in house teams who have been experimenting in an unstructured way are starting to form strategies, ad teams believe they own everything and even customer services want in on the act. While I believe there should be a place for social media across an organisation, there must be someone leading the herd for strategies to be implemented coherently. Not surprisingly, for me the responsibility has to lie with the PR team. We’re experienced in knitting together different strands of the marketing mix to create holistic strategies. Social media is about communicating messages effectively through conversations – that’s what we do. We just need to take ownership of the space, now.
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Recent #flockfriday posts: Darika Ahrens, Kerry Gaffney, Chris Hall, Lauren Fernandez
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