About the Author

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. One of the introductory thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis cofounded the Social Media Club and is a founding fellow member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup. He presently blogs when it comes to the evolution and future of PR and retail at PR 2.0 (www.briansolis.com), which is considered one of the most influential merchandising blogs in the world.

Deirdre Breakenridge is President and Director of Communications at PFS Marketwyse, a New Jersey-based syndication communications agency. There, she leads a originative team of PR and syndication executives strategizing to gain brand cognizance for their clients through originative and strategic PR campaigns. Also adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ, she teaches courses on PR and Interactive Marketing for the university’s Global Business Management program. She has spoken on PR, digital marketing, and brand building for organizations ranging from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to the Strategic Research Institute (SRI). Her books include PR 2.0, The New PR Toolkit, and Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Social Media = The Reinvention of Public Relations

Public Relations as we know it is speedily changing. Many tried-and-true PR schemes that we know and rely on are getting inefficient and irrelevant. We may no longer trust them to efficaciously reach and motivate today’s influencers.

The Web has changed everything. And the Social Web is endowing a new class of authorized voices that we cannot ignore.

This rising group includes (and is being led by) persons just like you. User-generated content (UGC) has flipped conventional PR and media on it is head, leaving a lot of communications masters and journalists dazed and confused. They wonder why everything is altering so suddenly, seemingly overnight. However, these changes do not actually represent “new” concepts. The “sudden” shift has actually been more than ten years in the making.

Social Media and Web 2.0 are altering the entire media landscape, placing the power of influence in the hands of regular people with expertise, opinions, and the drive and passion to share those opinions. This people-powered content evolution augments rather of replaces conventional media and expert influence. And in the process, totally new layers of top-down and bottom-up influence have been created. These layers dramatically exaggerate the number of info channels (one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many).

Traditional influence flowed from a news or info gatherer (for example, a journalist) to his or her audience. Blogs, social networks, online forums, and other forms of Social Media have changed the dynamics of influence. New selective information is now readily shared amongst peers. This peer-to-peer sharing—in which you, personally, and as a client representative participate—now affords communications masters the prospect to reach beyond their “A-list” media when telling their story. We may now likewise reach the “magic middle,” that group of idealisti clients who directly reach their peers through Social Media channels. As you’ll learn allround this book, the participant’s story replaces the pushed messages of the past, now tailored for specific audiences; Social Media requires that we “share” stories that gain all those engaged in the routine by firstborn learning what they’re specifically looking for.

Monologue has changed to dialogue, bringing a new era of Public Relations. It’s no longer with regards to conventional media and analysts. PR ought to now also focus on the very persons it wants to reach.

• Everything is changing, and (in our opinion) it’s for the better.
• People are blogging.
• Journalists are getting bloggers.
• The masses are creating and sharing content by way of social networks.

Bloggers are benefitting acknowledgement as industry authorities, earning the same (and now and again more) respect and reach as conventional media (and from time to time surpassing it).

PR veterans are of a sudden finding themselves searching for guidance and answers as everything they know is altering right before their eyes. A new, hybrid breed of Web-savvy communications pros is emerging, and companies and agencies are actively seeking these new experts to efficaciously compete, now and in the future.

These highly sought-after New Media PR practitioners include those who blog, run a podcast or video show, commune in popular micromedia networks such as Twitter, construct profiles throughout various social networks and actively cultivate their social graph, custommake pages with an understanding of “lite” HTML, and participate in the communities that are indispensable to them (whether in a professional manner or personally). Genuine experience is the desired commodity, not just a willingness to effort into new retail channels just because you have no other choice.

Therefore, it’s time to engage.

Don’t worry, though. It’s not too late to join and help guide the PR renaissance. You’re reading this book, so you already have a head start. The principles driving the New PR motion are not foreign; they’re deeply rooted in client service, the social sciences, and community participation. When you look at it from the perspective of an popular person and not a marketer, you’ll speedily realize that you already have experience as a consumer—one who makes purchases and advises others regarding their purchases. You have what you need to start out the change from within.

We’re writing this book for you.

Social Media will support us put the public back into Public Relations. With that in mind, we give hope or courage to you to jump in, but also to grasp the dynamics of Social Media, the new world of influence, and the applicable tools necessary for successful participation. Our goal with this book is to make you Social Media literate and to commence you down the path of getting a New Media expert and, more important, a champion for change. We believe that this book will help you excel in your merchandising career and give you the capability and selfassurance to aid those around you, including the company you represent.

This book lays out the lessons you need to learn, direct from our experiences over this past decade of ceaseless evolution. The data (and, we hope, wisdom) included in this book comes from more than just our personal experiences. We have included clear or deep perception from galore of the most visionary, brilliant, and active authorities on the subject of PR and the socialization of media. We believe that these perceptivenesses will support you perceive New PR and give hope or courage to you to adjust your own professional exercises to our new reality.

We all learn from one another.

Praise Quotes

“There will be two kinds of PR pros in the future: those who read this book and get with the program, and the unemployed. Your choice.”

—Seth Godin, Author of Tribes

“I am thrilled that there is ultimately a book when it comes to the right way to approach PR in today’s world, where hyper-connected conversations trump the old school broadcast mentality. Everyone who wants to build a career in PR or marketing must read this book.”

—Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

“Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a passionate and persuasive case for rewriting the rules of public relations. Authors Solis and Breakenridge expertly combine third-party perspective with case studies and examples to paint a picture of a profession on the brink of reinvention.”

—Paul Gillin, Author, The New Influencers and Secrets
of Social Media Marketing

“Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is an splendid read. It is the right book at the right time, explaining the reinvention of Public Relations at the hands of Social Media. A ought to read for those innovative venders charged with creating differentiation in today’s competitory marketplace.”

—Trish Piontek, Director, Retail Marketing, Amerisource
Bergen Corporation

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Most helpful client reviews

9 of 9 persons found the following review helpful.
My favored part of the book was Appendix B where the writers include a grid of URLs and short explanations for each.
By Jeff Lippincott

Not a bad book. I thought it read pretty well. It’s full length, has numerous good content, and is current as far as I could see when it comes to the topic of social media MARKETING (SMM). And it presents SMM from the slant of a capable up-to-date public relations professional. If you are a public relations professional and have not yet crawled out of the Dark Ages and become computer literate, then I highly commend you give this book a read. But for the rest of us who have been following SMM (whether we are public relations specialists or not), then I didn’t actually see much new covered or included in this tome. As a result I am going to drop my star rating for it down a notch. The book is broken into the following 5 parts and 19 chapters:

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Everything you wanted to know regarding Public Relations but were NOT affrighted to ask
By K. Freberg

In the course of taking public relations classes for in regards to seven years now – from my firstborn Introduction to Public Relations course at the University of Florida to going on for my Masters in Strategic Public Relations at USC, to now taking PR Strategies, Crisis Communications, and PR Management (Theory) at the University of Tennessee. In each class, we would of course be using a classic PR textbook, or we would have to buy the course packet of readings that the professor felt was more suitable for the class.

However, I came all over a public relations book a few days ago that is both freshening and enlightening that offers strategic perceptivenesses into the field, discusses real world cases and issues that public relations masters are dealing with in this altering business economy, and where PR as a profession is going to the future. The book that I am talking with regards to is “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations” by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge.

The book has a lot to offer to not only conventional public relations pros who have been working in the field for years, but for the younger generation of public relations pros that are just with regards to to enter the workplace in their primary job. Future practitioners and masters need to comprehend what is the current status of the field and where it will be heading (here is a great post by Brian Solis from his web internet site PR 2.0 on this very issue). There were various points that I liked when it comes to the book – first, it was very exhaustive in the realm of talking about the affect of social media on the public relations field. If you want to have a book that details you all of the elements of social media and how to use them efficaciously – this book then is a must-have!

Second, what I do like in the book is that it is very upfront and direct on what public relations masters need to do. Unlike numerous PR textbooks where the author may go on and on for pages regarding something that they could have said in two sentences, both Solis and Breakenridge provide a nice structured frame in their writing with a lot of content for the reader to routine and reflect upon. Plus, there are so a lot of topics that are covered in this book that are very hip and applicable to the public relations professional today. From understanding the new language of the new PR to understanding how a social media press release works to looking at where PR will be in the future (PR 2.0 +PR 1.o = Putting the Public back in Public Relations) – it is all very perceptive and what a great resource for PR professionals. I do agree with the writers that we as Public Relations pros need to make sure that we are establishing long-term and effective relationships with our audiences, and we need to be online and use social media to perceive it fully.

The only thing that I wished that the writers would have done in this book is to address an issue that is without doubt present in regards to social media and public relations – and that is there seems to be a struggle among what the practitioners in public relations feel with regards to social media and how they use it for their each and everyday PR practices, and how the PR academicians and researchers understand this new form of engineering and how they are using this in the classroom. I have unquestionably seen a huge gap in this area – and for professors, we want to give our students to tools and resources that they will need to be successful in the workplace and at the basi occupation – besides, these are going to be the leaders of the PR field, and it is our obligation to make sure that they recognise where the field stands in terms of social media and public relations – and what they need to know.

On another note, as a student and future PR professor / researcher – this would be something that I would be mesmerized in looking at specifically. For example, what would be a good deal of of the attainments that the writers would suggest that are necessary for students to have at their basi position? What types of class actions / assignings would they commend professors give their students? Also, what is their sensing of the gap amidst the practitioners in PR and the academic community in regards to social media – is there even a gap, and if there is one – how do we bridge together to become a more integrated field?

So, in summary – I would highly commend the new book “Putting the Public back in Public Relations” to not only PR practitioners and professors, but likewise to students (undergraduate and graduate) in Public Relations and Marketing to get a great resource on the latest in social media and PR from two established pros in the field.

Hope you all are having a outstanding day!

Best Wishes,
School of Advertising and Public Relations
Karen Freberg
Doctoral Student

[...]

University of Tennessee

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