Earlier this month, this guy penned a scathing article on Entrepreneur.com claiming that the PR industry is dead (to him). Aside from completely invalidating my career, he makes several erroneous assumptions about PR agencies and the companies that hire them.
I’ll give you a few minutes to read the story, which can be found here.
Done? OK. There are a few of Mr. Cardone’s comments that I’d like to address:
“There are more than 800 channels on TV, thousands of satellite-radio channels and social-media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Medium, Meerkat, Periscope, Blab, blogging and all of the other platforms. No PR firm is putting you out on every possible social channel and every stream you can be on. PR firms can be lazy and have too many excuses. They simply can not keep up.”
My take: He’s right. No PR firm is putting its clients on every channel — because there’s no point in putting them on every channel. As an account director, it’s my job to talk to clients about their business goals and strategically advise them where they should be in order to reach their key audiences. Case in point: In the world of franchise development PR, I can’t think of an example where a multi-unit franchisee would be checking out Periscope to decide which franchise concept to purchase. Does he/she care a concept is using Periscope as a marketing tool? Sure. But is a Periscope presence ultimately selling franchises? Probably not.
“First, you must commit to taking charge of your own PR. I am constantly posting videos on YouTube, beating up Twitter like a bully and banging on every other social platform available to me. One person committed to their own cause and getting known for it is more important and powerful than an entire PR company that has no real commitment.”
My take: Because CEOs have time for that, obviously. I fully support CEOs taking charge of their own social media presence because it makes it more genuine. However, PR agencies are much better equipped to advise on the type of content that should be posted and carving out the time needed to develop that content.
“I have given five different PR firms one year each to produce results for me … They talked a big game about Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Within two weeks they had already given up on the weekly updates and started giving me the standard excuses such as ‘we pitched them yesterday, it would be offensive to call them again today.’”
My take: He should really be judging what the firms come back to him with after he “pumped them with massive amounts of relevant content.” Did they share feedback from producers and editors? Did they go back to him with questions to help develop relevant angles that could tie him to timely news stories? If not, then maybe he failed to hire the right firm — five times over. It’s not about a client pumping out what it thinks are good stories. A client-agency relationship needs to be much more collaborative than that. It’s a partnership.
PR folk, tell us how you feel in the comments below. Do you think Mr. Cardone is right to believe PR is dead? Or should he step back and re-evaluate how he works with agencies?
