Over the last few months, I've read so many posts and had a myriad of conversations about public relations and whether or not traditional PR was even useful anymore.
A young person - a Facebook friend who just graduated college and just got her first job at a advertising/PR firm - told me recently she's probably never read an entire section of a newspaper in her life.
Todd Defren has an interesting blog post on the subject, and yesterday, I looked at a web site for a social media marketing firm that flat out said traditional media and the press release are dead.
The divide exists and I fear that ignoring either type of media will not bode well for your clients.
On the social media front, we cannot ignore facts:
- According to checkfacebook.com there are about 465 million users of the social media site. Facebook itself says it has more than 400 million active users and 50 percent of them log on daily.
- Twitter ended 2009 with over 75 million accounts.
- Special interest social media groups are springing up everywhere.
- Isn't e-harmony social media? I saw a report that one in eight couples getting married now met online.
- Social media clearly allows people to target very specifically.
But we should not ignore "traditional media" facts:
- Newspaper web sites are rated as most trusted when it comes to local news and advertising.
- A Google-commissioned study found that newspaper ads actually drive traffic to the web.
- While cable television is increasingly fragmented, it, like radio, allows advertisers to target very specific and highly specialized demographics.Likewise, magazines offer specialized markets and the ability to target certain consumers.
- There remains over 1,400 daily and more than 8,000 weekly newspapers in the United States. On any given day, approximately 55 million people read a paper (62 million on Sunday).
- And frankly, who doesn't listen to the radio or watch a little television?
The point is simple. There are so many great benefits to social media, but there is still strong usage of traditional media, despite the many challenges it is facing.
And yes, I am certain the shift will continue, but can you call something read by 55 million people dead? Television has had an equally scary drop in ad revenue, but is it dead? Can you as a responsible marketing professional ignore the opportunity to reach those people? I'd say no.
As a PR professional there is a tool box and it has all sorts of things in it...press releases, white papers, brochures, television interviews, events and more. Also in the toolbox are things like Facebook, newspapers, Twitter, blogs, television, and radio.
At home, your toolbox has various screw drivers, a hammer, a tape measure, a variety of wrenches and sockets and other items. And the simple fact is you wouldn't use a hammer to accurately and neatly cut a piece of wood.
But if you ignore Facebook, or Twitter, or newspapers, or television, or magazines, or blogs, or radio...if you decide press releases are dead or there's no point to arranging a television interview anymore, you just may find yourself cutting wood with a hammer.
Use the right tool for the job and make sure your toolbox is filled with all the tools you might need.
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