PR People as Car Dealers
I’ve often used the car dealer example as a way of explaining the changes brought about by social media. Do you remember what it was like to go with your Mom and Dad to a car dealer, circa 1975? Do you remember Dad clutching a worn copy of Consumer Reports? Do you remember the wheeling and dealing and offers of undercoating? Do you remember waiting six to eight weeks for delivery?
No more. Now you can go on the Web and right from your local dealer’s web site you can see what they have on the lot and how much it will cost you to drive off in your very own new gas-guzzler. You can even find out how much that dream car cost the dealer. And if you can find a better deal, your local guy might even match it.
The point is that the power relationship between car dealers and car buyers has reversed. Only a decade ago, the dealers held all the cards - they knew the price and you didn’t. Now we have access to all the information we need to make an informed decision.
Now the problem with this analogy is I never thought of it from the perspective of the car dealers. And until recently I never realized that I am a car dealer - of sorts. We PR folks have acted like car dealers for years, often treating our clients like clueless newbs who think we have some secret power to create media opportunites for them. LIke the mythical roledex that can get us the front page of Businessweek with only one phone call.
The problem is our clients are just as smart as we are and many of them are way ahead of us in using Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools. So they have access to the same journalists on Twitter that we do. They can subscribe to the same media email lists we do. And they know (hopefully) almost as much as we do.
So what can we offer them when they can subscribe to the Help A Reporter Out list just as easily as we can?
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Comments
I’m in corporate PR and I have to agree with Shannon — there’s hardly enough time in the day to keep up with ongoing social media projects. Add in all the new technologies and endeavors that companies are constantly launching and it is a full time job. So, we’re pretty much in the same spot but with new tools — we provide the legwork, contacts and new media savvy, so that our clients (whether internal or external) can go about their business, hopefully worry free.
On the other hand, crisis counseling/online reputation management seems to be a hot button for companies these days, and I see a lot of them coming to PR to ask “What should I do about these people saying something bad/wrong about my company?” It’s not all about proactive placements but counseling when things don’t always go as expected.
I’m with Shannon and Janie — P.R. pros can stay on top of this much better than I have TIME for. I mean, I can hack a little HTML and know WordPress pretty well, but I’d far rather hand over site design and related tasks to the pros who *really* know how to get it done. It’s the same for many other services grand (catering a party) to mundane (cutting my grass).
The key, I think, is to get into P.R. because you’re wired for it and love it, and then STAY in it so that your Rolodex really *is* better than your client’s.
Maybe it’s my background, but I think so many of us are waiters serving very hungry clients with the occasional over-cooked fillet and a backed-up kitchen.
Great post, Dave!
Don’t know if I ever considered myself similar to a car dearler, but I get the analogy.
In all honesty, this is an issue I’ve had clients bring up before, and those who are deeply versed in social media are usually the ones that understand the response best. Yes, the tools are more widely available today, however the expertise in every aspect of this increasingly complex landscape is a full time job that PR people are tasked to face everyday. It’s a full time job to do so. It’s hard and nearly impossible for a client to truly be an expert on this when its a forever evolving media world.
It’s wonderful when clients know what the media is saying on Twitter, and take adantage of the wonderful services such as HARO, but the time, level of depth, creativity and bigger picture understanding beyond the confines of one industry or network is what we as PR professionals are tasked with.
Great post!!