I feel your pain, I really do. I once got a blast pitch from my own agency while I was sitting down the hall from the poor AAE who had been ordered to send the pitch by his supervisor. The supervisor’s response? “The client made me do it.”

People keep looking for a magic bullet on the pitching front. They ask blanket questions like “how do I pitch bloggers” or “how do I pitch on Twitter.”

The truth is, there is no consistent answer, it’s different for each person. If you’re a good media relations person you know this because the same holds true for each reporter. But the economics of large agencies make that impossible.

Clients come in wanting “hits” because that’s what they’ve been sold. Impactful single “hits” are harder to come by than in the past because the audience is now scattered. So the solution from the PR perspective is to blast more people with the hope of getting more “hits.”

But that has diminishing returns. The true answer is to fundamentally change the way you approach PR. Influencer relations is still important, but it’s not about creating pitches and sending them, it’s about creating content and using that as part of your outreach. It’s combining what you do (storytelling) with what traditional PR does (media and analyst relations).

Which is what we do.

Let me reiterate that I am not against PR people at all. I think many of them do a bang up and a fantastic job. And I think it’s a much needed service. The bottom line is I don’t actually provide any of the traditional services a PR company does. I create content and help companies with social media efforts.

But not to derail the conversation, I think you might be interested in this little experience I had. It sadly speaks poorly of PR, but this came from a very well known person in the social media space.

Hey PR, bloggers are not tools to be used
My appearance on John C. Dvorak’s Cranky Geeks. Right at the beginning, John and I go at it talking about this story.
UPDATE: Bad PR experience story. PR firm’s client is obtuse.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by ItsFreshGround: Great post from @vanhoosear on the Fresh Ground blog abt the evolution of PR. We’re storytellers, not release writers: http://bit.ly/3Xl5Or...

Todd and I completely agree about storytelling, it’s what makes people interested in a brand, in a company or even in an individual.

Yes, PR has gotten off track in recent years and focused only on the media and analyst relations component, but that doesn’t mean the entire enterprise is useless.

Good PR people are about crafting and telling stories, they help guide their clients (or, if they’re internal, their corporations) into the greater marketplace by saying things that resonate with audiences.

Each person within an organization speaks in a different language, some talk about numbers, some talk about closing deals, some focus just on the technology. Someone must translate all that into stories that matter to the people doing the buying.

That said, don’t dismiss the need for some kind of influencer relations. Just because you have a good story doesn’t mean it’s going to be “found” by the right people. Often it takes an expert to help you figure out the path to their door.

Our hope is that PR can get back to this balanced appraoch, to not only crafting stories, but helping people get them out through all channels.

Storytelling as a concept perhaps focuses a lot on marketing, but GOOD storytelling is something that’s picked up and embraced across the organization.

I think you’ve caught PR in a bit of a transition, where a LOT of what we’re “supposed to do” is being turned on its head. Writing press releases simply isn’t as important as it used to be. Representing companies is being distributed across the organization, outside of the marketing function. And placement comes, more and more, from corners you don’t expect — from “non-traditional” media sources like blogs, etc.

I think you’ll find more and more PR companies positioning themselves as storytellers and, more appropriately, storytelling enablers — because the story is much more convincing if it comes from the company itself.

I think your point about the dilution is well made and well taken. We all want to get it from the source, not thirdhand. And I say that as a PR person. The days of seeing PR people in front of the cameras are quickly disappearing — we’re much more likely to be behind the camera…

Let me explain my theory as to why I don’t see myself as a PR person.

1. I’ve never actually performed a single function that a PR person officially is supposed to do. I don’t write press releases. I don’t represent companies for the press. I don’t “get them placement” in places.

2. I DO though WORK with PR firms. In a nutshell, what I do is custom publishing. My feeling is every organization should be its own media network. By creating your own media, and not relying on traditional press or bloggers to tell the story for you, then you get your own tale out there. I’m not against PR, it’s just not what I do. I get companies to publish and tell their own story. Read this article I wrote that goes into much greater length of what I was saying on TWiT. “Why Corporate Blogging is Like Selling Uncut Cocaine”

My feeling is once you’re telling your own story, then there’s a source for you to go back to. If you haven’t already seen the story about the “TSA Agent Took My Son” you should read it. “A great quick appropriate response to blogger outrage”

And George, thanks for the props!

The real question is: why does David want to distance himself from PR? How did our industry get to a place where we are as loathed as used car salesmen and politicians?

Your partner Chuck T. has said that PR has an image problem. Faced with that negative image, PR pros watching social media transform how business is done are trying to spin a yard that they don’t do public relations. Maybe they are right. Maybe part of the evolution of PR is that we call it something other than PR. Perhaps David is right. He is not a PR person. But what does that make us?