The Dead of PR and The Rise of Digital Marketing

Recently, my team produced a podcast with the topic of "The Dead of PR and The Rise of Digital Marketing". The podcast has received lots of views and comments especially from my ex-colleagues and friends in PR and digital marketing. Personally I think PR is not dead but need to transform comparing with 15 years ago when I joined the first PR agency as an account executive for my career when traditional media was the only source for news.

Nowadays, there are so many sources to get our daily news and information. Do you remember when did you buy the last newspaper or magazine? Then my next question is when did you check your phone in the last one hour or even 15 minutes? If you have your phone on hand that can read the global news and the things happening around you, why do you need to spend time on going to the nearest 7-11 to buy the newspaper or magazine. That is the reason of the closure of so many publications if they don't transform into digital format. Same as the traditional PR agency. If they don't transform and expand their team to handle digital marketing, they are very difficult to survive especially the PR agencies only handling consumer brands and hospitality clients.

As an in-house marketer, if you need to spend on digital marketing, would you appoint a professional digital agency or a PR agency to handle your SEM and SEO?

In addition to traditional PR agencies and publication companies, traditional PR professionals should shift their expertise to digital marketing even they specialise in crisis communications and financial PR. Sooner or later, they need to use the new media to disseminate information to the public. For example, if a cruise company fell into a serious accident, as the company CEO, would you prefer to use your owned platforms such as YouTube, FB, WeChat, etc.to disseminate most up-to-date and controlled information, and the media could re-post immediately; or would you still spend time to call for a press con and persuade the editors to write something that could favour you? If you were the family member or friend of the injured people on the cruise, would you prefer to get the latest information directly from the company CEO or wait for the delayed and even distorted information from the media?

Some PR professionals argue that the digital agencies would not be good at key message development, however, how's about the digital agency has a team of copywriters or hire ex-PR professionals? From my observation and experience, in-house marketers prefer to spend more on digital marketing instead of traditional PR services especially with the rise of some useful softwares such as Telum, WiseSearch, PR Newswire, etc. so that the in-house marketers can handle the media relations by themselves.

In short, as a company, media house or marketer, we need to adapt to the latest trends and technology to survive. We cannot rely on our current/past skillsets and/or experiences to meet the requirements of the world which is changing everyday!!