Is the R.I.P. for PR a trifle premature?

Social media is redefining the way pros pitch stories, and the field itself has an obvious choice: evolve or expire

There are as many PR prognoses as there are PR professionals.

Most agree that the industry is at a crossroads due in large part to social media, which has chiseled away at the way the profession has always worked. The old ways of pitching journalists via press releases has largely fallen by the wayside as demand grows for multimedia content and interactive PR.

Questions remain whether and how PR pros can evolve and survive the transition.

Fuat Kircaali, CEO and publisher of SYS-CON Media, believes 70 percent of today’s traditional PR firms will not survive, while the remaining 30 percent will need to reinvent themselves.

“Today's PR firms are sitting ducks in the way of tomorrow's social media freight train,” he blogged on Web 2.0 Journal. “They will join the extinct species of dinosaurs right about the same time as newspapers and most print magazines.”

That dire prediction sparked lively discussion online. A PR Daily post on the topic even elicited a response from Harold Burson, Founding Chairman of Burson-Marsteller: “What nonsense!”

Others have a more positive take on the future.

“While some are already predicting the death of PR, I fundamentally believe that it’s simply the death of PR as we know it,” wrote Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks.“As long as communications professionals want to learn and improve their craft, then we are positioned for evolution.”

Whither the press release?

The future of the press release is grim no matter whom you ask. The days of mass e-mails that tout a new product, service, or campaign are over.

“The traditional press release won't get you very far online,” says social media consultant Steve Spalding. “Bloggers, like journalists, get dozens and dozens of queries every day, and the only way for your product to get above to noise is to make it personal.”

Press releases have already become useless, Kircaali says, but because the rules for publicly traded companies dictate that information must be made public by a press release or telephone conference, they’re still being used.

“The new PR companies won’t be putting out press releases and won’t be in the press release business,” Kircaali told Ragan.com via e-mail. “The PR firm of the future will employ professional bloggers who will use social media tools to get their message into the hands of their targeted audience. The press release business already belongs to the Stone Age.”

Not so fast, says Michael Cherenson, chairman of The Public Relations Society of America.

“I don’t think we should be negating the importance of the press release,” he says. “I think all reporters and all bloggers are looking for information that’s provided in such a way to break down the story. I don’t think it matters what you call it, what matters is you take complex issues and you break them down and help other people understand.”

Although press releases haven’t quite yet worn out their welcome, the classic press-release style probably has, Solis says.

“The practice of blindly broadcasting messages through poorly written press releases at audiences is dead,” he blogged. “PR is NOT necessarily dead, but without the application of a social tourniquet, it is bleeding to death.”

A press release the links to YouTube, for instance, means more eyeballs on the company and its news.

Social media at the forefront

So what role will social media play in all of this? Probably a big one, as it was the emergence of social media that changed the media industry and threw PR into a tailspin.

“Consumers have more faith in other consumers than they do in reporters. … Consumers want to get the news from someone they think is like them,” says Rick Grant, founder of marketing communications firm Rick Grant & Associates. “This is why blogging has become such a big business, despite the fact that the vast majority of bloggers know little, if anything, about good journalism or ethical reporting.”

In order to reach these consumers, he says, PR professionals should take the time to train their executives to join the conversation.

Companies with the most respected bloggers will survive, Kircaali claims.

“The new job description of ‘professional corporate blogger’ will be a very popular one,” he wrote. “ … The ones who are equipped to provide those services whose job descriptions are not yet defined will be tomorrow's brave new PR companies,” wrote Kircalli, who also believes the efficacy of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn “will be proven null before the end of this year.”

The future, according to you

So, where does all of this leave you? Hopefully not frantically looking for a new job, but rather eager to embrace social media and leave behind archaic means of pitching journalists.

“We have to change our mindset,” Cherenson says. “It’s about the state of mind as much as the technology.”

Social media symbolizes a crossroads for public relations, Solis says. You can either adopt new tools or “continue relying on hyperbole and jargon-filled press releases for coverage, spamming targets with irrelevant information, maintaining a superficial and shallow knowledge of the products and industries we represent, and maintaining distant and removed relations with those we wish to cover our stories.”

Despite this widely held view that it’s swim or sink, Cherensen says it’s also essential for PR professionals to argue for the industry’s relevance – and survival.

“PR is definitely in state of PR crisis, but the PR industry hasn’t hired a PR team to take care of that,” Solis says. “That has to be done individually.”