This month, Todd Defren opined on the PR-Squared blog that public relations, as a distinct discipline, no longer exists. Marketing, Defren argues, is now the “umbrella under which all other disciplines fall.”

Many PR and marketing professionals would agree.

“The gray line between marketing and PR is (rightfully) diminishing …,” wrote one communications professional in response to a Vocus survey on Integrated Communications earlier this year. “Overall, marketing and PR have the same goal, and while they have different tactics to obtain that goal, their strategies need to co-align.”

Continue reading " Is Marketing Consuming PR as a Distinct Discipline? No – It’s Learning From It. "

As marketers and public relations practitioners, we know the importance of not only defining a target audience, but truly understanding who they are, who they want to be, what they love and what they can’t live without. Most established brands have this part down and could recite their consumer’s profile and new campaign ideas at a moment’s notice. But in a time when the minority is rapidly becoming the majority, marketers are starting to realize that they don’t have the same handle on U.S. Hispanics — a demographic that will soon reach 50 million people with a $1 trillion purchasing power, according to 2010 Census predictions.

Continue reading " Leveraging Audiences: Why Passion Points Matter "

The concept of “brand ambassadors” intrigues and delights business communicators. It’s a fact that people trust peers more than any other source, so what better marketing channel than one in which ordinary consumers do the marketing for you?

There have been hundreds of successful examples of companies enlisting customers to promote their products. My favorite is Fiskars, the Finnish maker of fine cutting tools that has used a private network of crafting enthusiasts called the Fiskateers (below) to focus product development, generate instant feedback and help sell products into specialty stores.

Continue reading " Five Rules of Brand Ambassadorship "

Part II (cont.)
Click here to read “The State of PR, Marketing, and Communications: You are the Future (Part I)”

Public Relations Is So Much More Than Media, Analyst and Blogger Relations
 

Credit: Ghedo

The business of public relaltions slowly evolved away from public interaction and eventually transformed into a mechanism of media, analyst and blogger relations to instill messages and attempt to manipulate public behavior.

Public Relations = Publicity

Continue reading " The State of PR, Marketing, and Communications: You are the Future (Part II) "

This post is long. If you prefer a Word or PDF version, please click here to download: “The State of PR, Marketing and Communications.”

Please take your time … Read it. Breathe it in. Live the change you wish to see.

Source

Modern public relations was born in the early 1900s, although history traces its roots and origins of practice back to the 17th century. Two years ago, the press release celebrated its 100-year anniversary.

While the communications industry has iterated with every new technological advancement over the last century, including broadcast media and Web 1.0, none, however, have forced complete transparency prior to the proliferation of the Read/Write Web, aka The Social Web, aka Web 2.0.

It is this element of fundamental transparency of social media, combined with its sheer expansiveness and overwhelming potential, that is both alarming and inspiring public relations professionals everywhere. At the minimum, it’s sparking new dialogue, questions, education and innovation, and also forcing the renaissance of the aging business of public relations itself.

While some are already predicting the death of public relations, I fundamentally believe that it’s simply the death of public relations as we know it. As long as communications professionals want to learn and improve their craft, then we are positioned for evolution. No matter how much we think we know, we’re now equalized as an industry in order to reset, learn, and define and earn an invaluable role within the business cycle — again.

Contrary to popular belief, social media isn’t killing public relations, but the business of public relations IS in a state of paramount crisis. It’s not without merit however. Perhaps up until now we have been our own worst enemy.

Continue reading " The State of PR, Marketing and Communications: You are the Future (Part I) "