Marketing podcast with Brian Solis (Click to listen, right-click and Save As to download)

For this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I asked Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks and co-author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, about the future of the PR industry as we know it.

There’s plenty of doom and gloom surrounding the practice of public relations in the social web world, but Solis suggests, and I totally agree, that there’s a tremendous opportunity if firms and departments understand how to evolve and grab it.

In a sense, old school PR was about control of the message, but ironically, we lost control the minute the press release went to distribution. In PR 2.0 we can listen, in real time, to how a message is being received, accepted and talked about. With that aspect in play we actually have more ability to jump in and shape or reshape how a message is perceived and shared – actually more control.

Social media has evolved to the point where it impacts every department, whether they choose to participate or not. The new PR agency and department must embrace the social web as an umbrella that links HR, Interactive, Marketing, Management and Finance. The role of the PR agency should expand in this new model.

The new PR firm has the awesome responsibility of helping every department realize that real people exist on the other end of every interaction and message.

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