Before we get rolling on this, let me state unequivocally that I fully endorse the the conversation. People who know me know that I have advocated loud and long for company leaders and employees to blog, to join the conversation, to do so candidly as human beings and not institutions. I have lauded companies that do so and criticized companies that have failed to when they should have. The evidence is in this blog. I long for the day when the conversation becomes the primary means by which effective organizational communication can occur, because I believe in it so deeply.

But, as a realist, I don’t believe that day is here yet.

Given that, I am taking this opportunity to respond to Stowe Boyd’s response to a comment I left on his blog the other day. His post is titled “Shel Holtz is The Perfect Example of PR People Who Don’t Get It.”

Disagreeing doesn’t mean I don’t get it. But more than that, I despise the “don’t get it” fallback. It is a smug, smarmy, holier-than-thou and insulting phrase that has little meaning beyond self-righteousness. It cuts off discussion. It is a personal attack that is counterintuitive to the notion of conversation.

Nevertheless, I believe that Stowe (whom I like personally and respect professionally) and I agree far more than we disagree. In general, I think the gap between us is based on (a) Stowe’s hang-up on the label “social media press release” instead of an understanding of what this tool really is, and (b) how far along the continuum the social media have evolved. I don’t think it’s as far along as Stowe does. I really do look forward to the day when it is that far along. Until then, when public relations professionals are planning to satisfy the communication needs of our clients, multiple approaches are required in order to accomplish specific goals and objectives. We would be remiss—not to mention irresponsible—if we relied strictly on social media for the communication of messages.

Given that, let’s review Stowe’s arguments in support of the assertion that I don’t “get it”:

Stowe

“People in the blogosphere were using blogs to have a conversation. They could be conversing about anything, including the New York Times, last night’s football game, or information received via press release…the notion that companies are part of the conversation simply by pushing out press releases—of whatever flavor: social or anti-social—is just dumb. You don’t join a conversation by shouting what you want to say over and over and ignoring what people are talking about. Sorry.”

Me

I wholeheartedly agree and have said so repeatedly for years. I never once suggested that a release of any kind represents participation in the conversation. Nobody involved in the development of the hRelease has made such claim. In fact, I have on several occassions noted that a press/news release is decidedly not a surrogate for conversation, and that companies interested in joining the conversation should blog at both the executive and front-line-employee levels and engage in the other social media tools available.

The idea of the social media release is to provide comprehensive, parsed, un-spun fodder for the conversation. The traditional release is configured for print—its format does not even account for radio or television. The social media release (and again, I would really rather it be called the “new media” release) is configured to be more usable in the computer-mediated era, including (but not limited to) those engaged in the social media space.

Why in the name of Edward Bernays is this such a difficult concept for some people to grasp?

Stowe

“My point is that people should drop much of the crap that defines press releases—third party voice, bullshit quotes that no one ever actually said, and so on.”

Me

Do we have an argument here? It seems that a lot of people want to blame the tool for the way it is abused. The idea that we should kill the press release because a lot of people are writing crappy ones is no different than suggesting that we outlaw hammers because some people use them to bash in the heads of their spouses. I detest—and always have—bad press releases. It’s why I’m such a fan of the Bad Pitch Blog.

One of the nice things about the social media release is that its format discourages much of this, or at least exposes it more clearly for the BS that it is.

Stowe

“Newpapers are drastically diminishing in importance in the world.”

Me

That’s a bold statement without any supporting data. It also doesn’t account for other traditional media, such as television and radio. For example, in a survey sponsored by the BBC, the following results spoke pretty loudly:

National TV was the most trusted news source overall (trusted by 82%, with 16% not trusting it) - followed by national/regional newspapers (75% vs 19%), local newspapers (69% vs 23%), public radio (67% vs 18%), and international satellite TV (56% vs 19%). Internet blogs were the least trusted source (25% vs 23%) ??? with one in two unable to say whether they trusted them.

So the statistics absolutley contradict the notion that social media is more highly trusted than traditional media. In general, it’s more highly trusted among people who engage in it, which continues to be a minority. I’ll reiterate that I long for the day when everybody is engaged, but that’s a ways off. The fact that it’s a ways off may be frustrating. But it’s also inescapably a fact. It’s also inescapable that blogs are the least trusted source.

That’s worth an extra note: I don’t trust blogs and I think you’d be foolish if you did. There are 57 million blogs being tracked by Technorati and I don’t know a fraction of the people writing them. Many are probably dishonest jerks with nefarious agendas. But I trust certain people, and some of them have blogs. Therefore, I trust their blogs. It’s the person I trust, in other words, not the medium.

Stowe

“The argument that the press release is the right mechanism to transmit important information to the world because it works so well for newspapers, is something like saying that oats are what we should put into the gas tanks of cars because it works so well for horses.”

Me

Umm…that’s why a working group is completely reinventing it. As I’ve noted before, given my druthers, I’d call this the “new media news post” or something like that, since it bears so little resemblance to a press release. But given the lack of familiarity of so many organizations with the computer-mediated communication space, calling it a press release at least helps them get the gist of what it’s designed to do.

Stowe

“The same can be said for conventional TV, which just had the lowest viewer numbers, proportional to population, in decades.”

Me

The lowest, yes, but still pretty damn high—millions and millions of people, including influential and important people who just don’t happen to use or trust the Net as their source of news. (Some of the deterioration of numbers, incidentally, can be attributed to people turning to the Net to view video from the likes of CNN, so exactly the same content is being viewed on a different medium.) And given (according to the BBC) that it’s still the most trusted news source overall, it would be foolhardy and irresponsible to ignore it.

Stowe

“I have made my argument in several earlier posts about the need for an identity broker service to validate comments made by company representatives.”

Me

I love this idea. Let’s talk more about it. Let’s create it. Who’s game?

Stowe

“I never said that blogs fulfill every need, but it is a group of PR folks that are trying to socialize press releases, and bring them into the blogospher. Perhaps there are some people in corporations that would ike to have bloggers write about what they are doing?”

Me

Deep, deep sigh. We are not trying to socialize press releases.

We are not trying to socialize press releases.

Oh, and by the way, we are not trying to socialize press releases.

We are trying to make the information pertinent to a corporate announcement usable in the computer-mediated space, including the social media space.

Did I mention that we are not trying to socialize press releases?

Stowe

“My point about broadcast is that people don’t trust broadcasted messages anymore. Companies can do whatever they want, but I , and the rest of the world, now have the ability to get our information via other modes of communication: the power has shifted to the edge. They don’t control the means of our communications. Companies may feel that they have good reasons for broadcasting messages: economics, expediency, whatever. In general, however, people will tune out or simply discredit such communication as a cheap attempt to manipulate the recipients of the “message”—the “audience”—without fully attempting to engage them in dialogue.”

Me

Deeper sigh. Read the statistics above from the BBC survey (and there are many, many other studies that support the BBC survey’s conclusion). People do trust broadcasted messages. Sorry. I understand exactly where Stowe is coming from with his statement, given that people who are engaged in the conversation seek information from the edge. But again, that’s a minority at this point. In communicating messages to everybody—or to the people who would be most interested in them—we must account for the majority who still find national TV news (and other traditional channels) the most credible and trustworthy source of information. When they’re gone, or there is proof that they are not influential, we’ll stop accommodating them.

In the meantime, organizations also have to engage in the conversation.

It’s not an either/or decision.

Sorry.

Conclusion

I love the vision of the world Stowe believes exists today. I want to live in that world. But I have to work, and represent clients, in the real world. That requires recognition of the reality of both avenues. Traditional press releases continue to provide some value to some media. As Jeremy Pepper points out, they are incredibly valuable in hyper-local communication that is one-to-one in nature.

This beast that has been tagged with the unfortunate name “social media press release” is designed to make information more usable within the world of both mainstream media websites (that use links and tags and multimedia) as well as the social media space. It does not mean that the press release is being socialized. Never said it. Never thought it. Never intended it.

So if that means I don’t (ugh) “get it,” then I’ll just have to live with that. I’m so ashamed.