Autor: Gaye Carleton

Blog postings. E-mail newsletters. Text messages. Notices from social networks (“Janie Smith wrote on your wall”). Electronic press kits. The virtual is everywhere.

But things you can actually hold in your hand — a press clipping, a press kit, a creative promo item — become more important these days in PR because, let’s face it, the virtual is here one minute, gone and forgotten the next.

PR is all too often perceived as an ethereal business, and because the virtual is so fleeting, the chances of having our PR efforts viewed as momentary manipulation rather than strategic positioning are greatly increased. For PR to live only in the virtual world seems much too risky, and, in this way, I worry that PR could become an “at-risk” industry. After all, in the virtual world, worlds collide as blogger after blogger becomes both publicist and reporter. Church and state meld into one. I contend that unless there’s something physical and sustainable about PR, it simply perpetuates the “it’s only smoke and mirrors” syndrome we’ve endeavored to counteract for years.

And while at the moment we’re fascinated with all things virtual—YouTube postings, tweets, tags, BlogTalkRadio and more—and with virtual being touted as “the future is now,” I say, “Just say no.”

Virtual is more than a fad, for sure. It’s never going to go away. But it will be “weighted” differently. And going forward, I predict it will be “back to the future” with old-school PR trappings being viewed once more as the glue, as the basis of substance.

The mix of real and virtual is actually moving PR (and the rest of the world) forward, to be sure. In our industry, the blog posting by a respected writer, for instance, adds readership and reinforces the print magazine review, which in turn sparks a discussion in an online forum, which piques the interest of a television producer. More likely though, at least for now, it works in reverse. A newspaper article prompts a television segment and both get repurposed as virtual content, in the land where content is king. Continue reading “PR: Physical vs. Virtual” →

The view from the U.S. (and of the U.S.) just got whole lot better with the inauguration of our new president, Barack Obama. Even though the stock market keeps plummeting and the nation’s financial brain trust warns of more impending disasters, hope springs eternal.

Indeed, 2008 was a tough business year here—and all around the world—and the forecast for 2009 doesn’t seem much better. Still, small things, like Obama signing an executive order to close Guantánamo within the next year and mandating that going forward our governmental processes include a responsible level of transparency, make a big difference, even if the “action” associated with those declarations hasn’t yet been implemented.

Sometimes just saying it makes it so, if who is speaking is believed to be credible by a majority of those listening.

Building a consensus is, after all, what each of us does everyday for each and every one of our accounts. Many times, however, spurred by anxious clients, a short-term result — hard-won editorial coverage, a well-received event with a big buzz factor, a media tour that opens a couple of stubborn press doors — can blur our sense of what PR is really about: establishing a common belief first within an inner circle of influencers and then transferring it into an entire market, so much so that simply saying something makes it feel and appear like an action has already taken place. Continue reading “Establishing a common belief” →

Print, the Phone Call and Pressing the Flesh – They Aren’t Dead Yet.

The Blogosphere has fallen too much in love with itself, and that’s a problem. Overhyped and over-promoted on blogrolls and among bloggers, Weblogs can’t live up to their reputation. Everyone has a blog these days, or so it seems, and keeping track of what is relevant and worth reading is hard work. Feeds help, but not by much.

Granted, print media is having a tough time these days. The New York Times has begun selling ad space on its hallowed front page — a practice of other newspapers but not, until now, of the paper of record. Continue reading “A media perspective from the U.S.” →