Hill+Knowlton Strategies

When it comes to the inter-relationships between professional and amateur creators of content, the smart folks at Wharton have it right.

“Pitting amateur and professional content against each other makes a good storyline, but it’s misleading to see them as fundamentally opposed,” says Werbach. “User-generated content will never match The New York Times for the overall quality of coverage of the Iraq war, for example, but reading Iraqi blogs, or political blogs about the war, provides some perspectives you won’t get from any newspaper.” And, he adds, “There’s no way a traditional encyclopedia will ever match the coverage of Wikipedia, because there are so many more contributors. On the other hand, while the quality of most Wikipedia entries is surprisingly good, there are times you want the certainty of a reference work that is professionally edited and vetted, or a smaller set of resources that have been pre-selected by experts.”

For PR professionals, understanding the interplay between amateur and professional journalism is critically important. And as we counsel clients, we need to be sure that this interplay is reflected in our strategies as neither should work in total isolation of the other. Each offers a unique value that can further elevated when appropriately integrated. 

Both bring value,” says Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of IT at Wharton, in the article. “The latter brings quickness and a personal viewpoint and the former provides analysis and consistent quality (hmmm?). The world I want to live in includes healthy doses of both categories.” (Amen)

But to think that this is simply about old and new media would be a mistake. As Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, states: “The digital environment is putting an enormous responsibility on the consumer.” No doubt. But I would also suggest that this notion of responsibility also touches organizations as well, although less from the consumer perspective of becoming better judges of content, and more from being the providers of authoritative and credible content. In the same way media have, for years, held governments and corporations to account, and as the media themselves are now being held to account by bloggers in terms of ensuring fair and accurate reporting, I wonder if it’s not time for organizations to re-think their own responsibility to their own stakeholders – customers, employees, partners alike – in terms of addressing issues of inconsistency, inaccuracy and lack of context that could flow from traditional and new media alike. 

For example, to assume that 300 words in a newspaper or a 30-second clip on television is enough to provide sufficient context and clarity around an issue of critical importance, no matter how accurate the reporting, is as flawed as putting one’s faith and trust in an “anonymous” blogger. At the same time, many organizations have access to subject experts whose commentary could help bridge the link between these various media in a highly credible way.

And this, in my view, spells opportunity for many organizations who get it. Appropriate and transparent outreach, built on a commitment to authoritative rigour and timely, proactive engagement, can provide organizations with the means to play a more visible role in helping stakeholders and consumers make more discerning judgements on specific issues being discussed in both the mainstream and citizen media.

Update: What do I mean by this? Primarily, strategic use of digital tools to provide deeper insight on specific issues being discussed in both traditional and online media, to reinforce messages through substantiated examples supported by video or imagery, to showcase interviews with subject matter experts posted online, to provide FAQ’s and visualizations that either expand upon, refute or clarify discussions taking place in the traditional or online media, or to support engagement in forums and sites external to the organization itself.

It’s a role that organizations need to be prepared to step up to. 

In recent months, I’ve become somewhat concerned by the overwhelming attention being paid to social media at the expense of other digital PR functions.

While social media is inherently an extension of that function, for the benefit of younger PR professionals and those who are still exploring the role that digital plays within a PR context, I thought it important to outline some other activities – in addition to what we are doing in the social media space – that are taking place within H&K Digital here in Canada.

The point being, that we need to avoid the same issue currently faced by our industry around the mistaken association that PR is synonymous with media relations and nothing more. We can’t ignore that social media, like media relations, is becoming a key (and highly visible) subset of our respective offerings, overshadowing many other PR disciplines and areas of expertise.

But we have to avoid falling into that same trap, and yet do so intelligently. Clearly opportunities exist for forward-thinking PR firms and practitioners. But we must also be aware of the challenges related to finding those practitioners with the right skillsets required to undertake these types of assignments – namely the capacity to bridge the chasm that often separates the traditional PR practitioner with the digital specialist (not only the social media specialist) trained in areas such as functional design, information architecture and content management.

The opportunities exist. Here’s a quick sampling of digital projects currently underway in our shop that extend beyond social media:

• Auditing the electronic communications (EC) function of a federal government department, and providing recommendations on how to position the EC team to more effectively address emerging trends in digital communications, and the changing expectations of their internal clients.
• Undertaking various training sessions, including conducting a half-day ”Writing for the Web” course for another government department
• Auditing the communications function of a large energy company as it relates to that organization’s overall emergency response protocol, and making recommendations for digital integration within that function.
• Providing strategic guidance on the development of a crisis dark site for another large corporation
• Developing an over-arching online strategy (that will likely include social media) for a large technology firm’s sponsorship of a major cultural event.
• Supporting an organization’s online efforts to reach out to, and effectively communicate with, both institutional and retail shareholders on a key issue.

To repeat: social media is undeniably a critical component of many campaigns that we now execute on behalf of clients. And while we regularly bake social media into our strategies and programs, and as we are increasingly engaged to create, feed into, or support various corporate blogging strategies, blogger outreach campaigns, and other social media initiatives, connecting ourselves too aggressively to that one segment of the digital universe could result in our being excluded from other more “traditional digital” opportunities… which would be a bad thing for PR as its seeks to re-define its role in the changing communications landscape.

Is it all about growth? That’s certainly a big part of it. 2007 was a pretty good year. But it also has to do with a combination of many other factors: new business, pending parenthood, evolving skillsets and the like. All that to say, there’s a few offices here in Ottawa looking to be filled.

So here’s what Hill & Knowlton is looking for (in a nutshell): Experienced mid-level (Account Director) and junior communications consultants with solid track records of experience and education. People who “get” traditional PR but who also get the changes currently afoot in the world of social media and the internet, and can connect the two together in ways that make sense for our clients. We’re talking team players who can think on their feet, and who can get the job done without a lot of hand-holding.

Solid writing skills are essential, as is, of course, attention to detail and the capacity to think and deliver both strategically and tactically. And in this town, bilingualism is always an asset.

What do you get in return? Opportunities to work with some of the smartest folks in the business, cool clients, beer cart every Friday, good benefits, and all the fun stuff that comes with working in a high-pressure, high-expectations environment. 

Show us what you’ve got. Send me a message via my blog, or contact Jackie King, VP Communications at jackie(dot)king(at)hillandknowlton(dot)ca. We’re also online at www.hillandknowlton.ca.

Don’t be shy.