I normally avoid the old ‘review of the year’ chestnut, but in the year the media industry pulled itself out of the doldrums, the Institute of Public Relations went all posh on us and the blogging thing took on mythical proportions, I just couldn’t resist.
Welcome recovery
I know it’s not exactly scientific, but whenever I get out of the office I always ask both journalists and PR people how business is going. Where 2004 seemed to be all about specialist magazines picking up what little advertising there was and smaller agencies feeding on project work while larger ones struggled, this year things seemed to have moved on to optimistic mutterings from all sides - big and small. The needle on my business confidenceometer is now firmly into the positive.
Perhaps a little more scientific is press release volumes. In November we processed 373 press releases through our press release wire, the best month this year at 12 per cent more than the previous best and nearly double the monthly average for 2004. It’s even better than the monthly average for 2000, the peak of the dot-com boom. But I don’t want to think about that too much.
PR has gone posh
This year the Institute of Public Relations became the Chartered Institute of Public Relations - so now it’s snappily referred to as the CIPR. Personally, I can’t quite see the relevance of becoming chartered. I suppose it’s about recognition of PR as a profession. Or maybe it’s about attracting more members. Either way I think the latter is much more important. PR doesn’t need to reinforce its status - business and the public sector have both embraced PR as an effective communications tool and the PR sector appears to be in rude health, so who cares if the average person on the street thinks it’s just about spin?
At the CIPR annual conference in November the organisation revealed research to suggest there are nearly 48,000 people working in PR in the UK. Yet only 8,000 of these are CIPR members, and only about 150 of them went to the conference. PR does need a forum and it may as well be the CIPR, so let's hope that if there is an impact of the chartered status it is that more people join.
A load of old bloggers
OK, OK. So blogging is a bit of a phenomenon. But it’s more a phenomenon of exaggeration than one of substance. Blogging in general a great thing, but as a media relations issue it has been blown completely out of proportion. Yes, every now and then someone will say something in a blog that captures the imagination of a lot of people and throws someone into disarray. But this happens very rarely.
Blogging is just the ability for ordinary people to get stuff up on the web more quickly and easily than before. It’s no different an issue from a media relations perspective than chat rooms and forums, which have been around since the web first took off. The ‘blogosphere’ is certainly nothing to be afraid of.
The Register editor in chief Drew Cullen recently said most bloggers were just teenagers posting gossip for their mates and that in any case the good bloggers will ‘just become us’. What he meant by that was good bloggers who get good material and write well will morph into ‘conventional’ online publications.
By all means it is worthwhile researching and monitoring blogs that may have a direct relevance to your clients - especially the well-read ones, often written by journalists, analysts and consultants - and engage with them if you think it's worth it, but don’t let it distract you from focussing on communication strategy.
The real blogging issue is whatever happened to that lovable rogue of a satirical PR blog that was Spin Bunny? Don’t try looking it up, the wabbit is no more. Perhaps it will be shown to be a metaphor for the blogging hype - one minute it's on everyone's agenda, the next it's gone.
Now for the sell
Well, if you’ve managed to read this far then perhaps I’ve earned the opportunity of a plug for DWPub. Being totally honest I have to say that 2005 has been an incredible year for us. It’s been a milestone, having seen the completion of a four-year expansion of our services out of technology and finance into all sectors. We now have a publications database, journalist enquiries system and press release wire which are all relevant to media relations professionals in all sectors. Phew! It was hard work, but well worth it. All that remains is to thank our many existing customers for your loyalty (and sometimes your patience as we have been going through growing pains) and welcome aboard the many new customers that have joined us in recent months.
