Why are PR firms terrible at Social Media?

[Kyle Lacy]

Maybe the title is a little harsh but I have yet to see a valuable contribution to social media from a public relations firm. PR companies should be the first on the wave of social media and yet they waver.

Now, I am not saying that they are not around and working on social media. If you know of some firms that are making strides in the social media arena... Please share their stories.

[Mike Seidle]

Chris,

I'm going to assume you are an adult, and take the emotional language out of things and speak directly to social media ROI measurement.

If you can measure cost and you can measure gain in value, you can measure ROI. Measuring cost in social media requires a high level of organization, but it can be achieved (a simple way, outsource the campaign, and book the vendor's invoice as the cost). Most companies blow it on social media bey being unorganized and having poor marketing discipline.

Measuring gain is where the trick is, most CFOs will not accept subjective gains. Most social media experts primarily justify their results on subjective terms - brand value and goodwill. That doesn't fly with the CFO or CEO. The key is finding a way to measure that shows an increase in asset value or an increase in sales or profits. This can be done, and at a simple level, it can be done by tracking sales from social media leads (or direct online sales). More complex systems look at list valuation or customer lifetime value. Regardless, the measure should be similar to how other campaigns that deliver a similar outcome are evaluated.

[Arik Flanders]

You're right Mike it can be measured, but only to a certain extent. I can measure my time and track all of my incoming links, but what about social media? What I mean is that social media is all about dialogue and sharing information, rather good or bad. For example if I link my site on twitter, or set up a facebook fan page, sure I can track the time it took to do that, as well as the direct results I get from them. However, what happens when someone reads my tweet or checks out my facebook pages and tells their friend about it over the phone, or sends them an email with a dead link to my site. This is of course part of my campaign, but when someone comes to my site through my url or through a search engine, because they heard about it from thier friend, who heard about it from my social media campaign, then what?

That traffic and potentinally those sales stemmed from my social media marketing, but considering I'm doing CPC, Organic SEO, flyers, email markeitng, etc, I can't accurately track my ROI for (specifically) social media, because they came into my site from a different resource, which again stemmed from social media.

Therefore, I agree that it is somewhat measurable, but only to a certain extent.

Chris and Mike: Thank you for the very enjoyable heated discussion.

[Miranda McCage]

I think you should check out Shift PR. They're the first (and to be honest, only) PR agency that comes to mind when thinking about successful social media PR agencies. Todd Defren has some great thinking at pr-squared.com too.

[David Mark]

Did U see Gary Vanerchuk's Video Blog on PR firms from last week? If U haven't, U should!http://bit.ly/QRTIT

[Elizabeth Friedland]

Wow. You must not know of many PR firms, Kyle. I'm surprise you'd issue such a sweeping and offensive statement.

[Kyle Lacy]

Oh you of all people know that offensive and sweeping statements gain exposure and comments. I clearly state that not ALL PR firms are like this. Most are though..

Trendy Minds is very much involved in social media and I appreciate that. Congrats!

[Elizabeth Friedland]

Oy. Yet another conversation highjacked by the rudeness of Chris. Lovely.

[Gus Pearcy]

My thought about the title of this thread is how can you know? Good PR firms are more about the client then pimping their own social media expertise. I'm sure there are several advertising and public relations firms that are creating a buzz through social media, but are so seamless that they make it look like the client is doing all the work.

Isn't that the real crux of all service work? Only the client should be aware of the marketing plan.

[Andrew Gouty]

In following this conversation for a few days, I think Gus just made the most relevant remark. Unless PR and social media firms are going to start stamping their not-so-ghost blog outputs with their own brand, we're likely to not hear so much of the positive results save from stories about the client. Great point.

Attended the PRSA lunch last week to hear Kevin Dugan (@prblog) speak on Social Media to a crowd of PR types. If anyone has gotten hold of his slides, I think many found his presentation enlightening (I did).

[Stephen James]

The majority of PR is about controlling the public message not having a conversation.

[Chris Lucas]

James, that might have been the way it used to be but PR just like everything else is changing...