On Friday, the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms presented a PR bootcamp with presentations and panels led by some of Toronto’s agency leaders.

The sessions included talks on motivating and challenging staff, selling PR to senior management and pitching to win. The keynote speaker was John Stackhouse, editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, who was candid in his assessment of mainstream media and some of its challenges adapting to the new environment.  (He did say there was no reason why journalists did not to open attachments, an excuse many of us have heard over the years.)

I had the pleasure of being on a social media panel with Joe Thornley, Alex de Bold and Mark Evans and moderated by the always eloquent Michael O’Connor Clark.  We started by each offering three tips to help PR practitioners get a better grasp of social media.  

Here are mine:

1. Embrace the ‘60s – I’m a boomer so I can’t help myself. But I think there’s a lot we can learn from hippie culture. Back then the establishment was quick to dismiss changes as irrelevant and not worthy of their attention.  Today, traditional PR may be similar to the establishment in its initial reaction to social media. Part of the reason is the fear of leaving our comfort zone. We need to get beyond that and build a culture of participation not window shopping. Otherwise, we’ll risk being the awkward-looking ‘adult’ who shows up at a party wearing a tie-dye shirt but doesn’t really understand what’s going on around them.
2. Forget the ‘90s – That’s when PR people became broadcasters – first with the formerly state of the art implement called a facsimile and then with emails to large undisclosed recipient lists. For the sake of speed and efficiency, we turned our backs on relationships and inadvertently became spammers.  That got the industry into a lot of trouble and hurt our reputation.  We’re called public relations. Relationships are embedded in our name. And that’s a good meeting ground for social media and traditional PR.
3. Gaze into the future – In Here Comes Everybody, professor and author Clay Shirky talks about the changes brought on by social networks. He likens the new order to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, which was so transformative the old models were no longer able to predict what would happen in the future. I think the same holds true today. Who knows where our industry is heading in three, five, or 10 years from now?  That’s a scary thought. It’s also inspiring. We need to look ahead, continue learning and maintain an open mind to test and evaluate new things. Consider this: the editor of the Harvard Business Review said 1) PR is soon going to be competing with media; and 2) she envisions a time in the not so distant future when PR strategies will not have a media relations component.

Interesting scenario. What do you think?

About Martin Waxman

Martin Waxman, MCM, is a digital communications strategist. He conducts AI research, leads digital and social media training workshops and speaks at events across North America. He's co-founder of two PR agencies, president of a consultancy and has worked in the industry for nearly 30 years. Martin is a LinkedIn Learning instructor, teaches digital strategy and social media at McMaster University, the Schulich School of Business, University of Toronto SCS and Seneca College. He's a member of the Institute for Public Relations Digital Media Research Center and a past-chair of PRSA Counselors Academy. He has a Master of Communications Management (MCM) from McMaster-Syracuse Universities.

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