My one and only boss in PR was in good form when he spoke at a party marking a milestone for the agency I worked for prior to starting my own.
He rounded things off with the joke about two bulls walking down a hill, seeing a herd of cows grazing in the meadow below.
“Let’s both run down and service a couple of those cows,” said the one bull to the other. The other replied: “Actually, let’s walk down and service the lot.”
Much water has passed under the bridge since then, but the story reminds me not to allow the basics of Public Relations get away from us.
Don’t limit your audience with a narrow-minded approach. To me, PR has always been about raising awareness as far and wide as is relevant using all available communications channels.
Inevitably today this means utilising digital media, and genuine influencers, as an increasingly important part of the communications mix. Not, however, at the expense of everything else.
Rather than be driven by social media, and allowing it to take us over, agencies need to take control.
There is still a lot more to PR than social media. Crucially, PR should be the driver of social media, not the other way around. A good PR agency invests in digital specialists with the same high level of skill and expertise as the rest of the team.
Combine these elements and you have the reason why clients placing a major emphasis on digital communications should always trust a good PR agency first. No bull.