Do PR agencies do 'Social Media'

As a tech specialist in PR, 2 things seem to irk me every week.

Firstly is the assumption by colleagues and potential clients that any strategy that includes 'digital media' (or whatever it is called, you'll see I interchange a lot on this), should go to the technology specialist area.

What that means is that if a pharmaceutical company is looking to do an 'internet media' type campaign, it gets referred to me and (not always) the healthcare team. Specialisms usually (and should) refer to audiences, rather than 'channels' (and I will get to channels in a bit), yet the whole world, PR agencies, in-house departments, recruiters and journalists far too frequently confuse the two. My technology specialism means I understand the industry, the characters and how to develop a message of interest and how to get it to the relevant people (through tech, biz and vertical press/journalists/ bloggers). That's PR at its very core.

The other thing that seems to drive me mad is the constant debate about whether an agency has a 'Social Media Capability' or SMC as I'll now call it. Before SMC evolved, grew and took over the world like swine flu, I had never been asked in all my time if I had 'Print Media Capabilities' (PMC) or Broadcast Media Capabilities (BMC). Social Media doesn't really help define a 'skill-set' - if it encompasses youtube, twitter, blogging and website, these are all very different, some of which are relevant for B2C campaigns and some only for B2B campaigns.

SMC or SM is just a channel and should really only be called Internet Media (IM). So do you hire a ‘channel’ expert or an ‘audience’ expert or to put it another way, as a Retail company should you hire an expert on ‘Social Media’ or an expert on ‘the Retail industry’?

Any half decent PR will have experience in all channels, for sure, the PR will use some more than others, but will have a broad list of tools (or channels) to use. A ‘channel’ expert understands how to use a channel, and will have a deep understanding of what can be done in SM. They will however, not understand your business or your industry. They will not be able to produce messaging and content appropriate for your business to go public with (although, of course they’ll say that they can).

I would favour an audience, rather than channel expert. PR’s have for years used professional photographers, press release distribution services, design agencies, video specialists where the need to have one exceeds the capabilities available within a PR agency. Social Media is mostly executable within any decent PR agency and if the needs of the client (in order to reach its audiences) exceed the capabilities within the agency (and this is likely to be technical only), then it can bring in a specialist.

Clients should hire PR agencies to develop and execute a strategy and campaign – that is their expertise. But also, PRs need to articulate SM faithfully and to stop driving a confusing frenzy for clients that they 'have to do social media' and around agencies that you 'have to have a SM department'.

We need to go back to our core of helping companies communicate with their stakeholders.

The thing about most PR campaigns that I read about, see or am asked to conduct is that the core purpose is all too often lost. PR campaigns are normally designed to support a marketing campaign which is normally supposed to drive sales, brand awareness or knowledge. For any of these three, the key is the audience, and for the PR the question is who are they and how can we reach them? PR is the skill set best placed to help any company set this strategy in place and execute on it. For a client, the question is really, which agency understands me, my industry and my target audience the best. The rest is just nuts and bolts.