Digital-First is the Way

Digital-first is the way.

I can see it clearly. It was nev­er about what role “the new digit­al land­scape” was sup­posed to play in PR.

It was always about what role — if any — PR was sup­posed to play in the Electronic Age.

Here we go:

“Digital-First? No Way!”

I’ve worked in vari­ous dis­cip­lines of pub­lic rela­tions. When I doubled down on digit­al strategy and found suc­cess, many peers in the tra­di­tion­al PR industry tried to con­vince me that I’d bet­ter set my mind on digit­al being a fad.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” they said.

Most tra­di­tion­al PR pro­fes­sion­als regarded digit­al media as just anoth­er inform­a­tion tech­no­logy. They thought the hype would die and the digit­al media hype would fade.

One respec­ted seni­or PR pro­fes­sion­al approached me at an event. He was a little bit drunk, but he wanted to inform me that “everything would soon be back to nor­mal again.” He told me he was impressed by my ideas on digit­al PR but that I should be care­ful not to “burn any bridges.”

“This digit­al media hype won’t last forever,” he said.

A few years later, his renowned tra­di­tion­al PR agency, once a power­house and a career tar­get for many pro­fes­sion­als, is gone. I haven’t heard from him since. And the digit­al trans­form­a­tion has only just begun.

Digital media is like noth­ing we’ve ever seen before. As soon as you stumble upon some­thing new, yet anoth­er end­less con­tent abyss opens up under your feet.

Not even the print­ing press meas­ures up. Our cur­rent digit­al trans­form­a­tion is on par with the indus­tri­al revolu­tion. And it shows no signs of slow­ing down.

But more import­antly for many tra­di­tion­al PR pro­fes­sion­als — the old ways won’t be mak­ing a comeback.

Enter: The Electronic Age

Human cul­ture is often described based on our access to pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies (e.g., the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age).

According to Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication Theory, a bet­ter ana­lys­is would be to view soci­et­al devel­op­ment based on the prom­in­ence of emer­ging com­mu­nic­a­tions technologies.

McLuhan’s Four Epochs

McLuhan sug­gests divid­ing human civil­isa­tion into four epochs:

“The Gutenberg Galaxy is a land­mark book that intro­duced the concept of the glob­al vil­lage and estab­lished Marshall McLuhan as the ori­gin­al ‘media guru’, with more than 200,000 cop­ies in print.”
Source: Modern Language Review ¹McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al and lin­guist, I sub­scribe to the concept of the Electronic Age. I firmly believe soci­ety is unlikely to revert to the Gutenberg Galaxy.

Like the rest of soci­ety, the PR industry must com­mit to digit­al-first, too. Mark my words: It’s all-in or bust.

Read also: The Electronic Age and the End of the Gutenberg Galaxy

The Inbound Shift

As pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als, we must rethink how we think about pub­lics. Traditionally, many PR depart­ments have argued:

“Why should we waste budgets on ‘already acquired’ audiences?”

The truth is — it’s the oth­er way around.

The inbound shift is a fun­da­ment­al mind­set change in the pub­lic rela­tions industry.

Instead of “spam­ming” non-exist­ing audi­ences, pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing can do much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ²Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Inbound vs Outbound: The Difference

Inbound vs out­bound is the online equi­val­ent of draw­ing the line between those who know you and those who don’t.

Drawing a line between those who know you and those who don’t know you is noth­ing new:

If your inbound shift PR strategy is strong, you might no longer need to pri­or­it­ise your out­bound PR strategies since your inbound audi­ence will attract out­bound publics!

Learn more: The Inbound Shift PR Strategy

PR Must Adapt — Or Die

Digital media will be the prime mover of people’s per­cep­tions for a long time. It has become our num­ber-one source for inform­a­tion, group form­a­tion, and dialogue.

The biggest chal­lenge in mod­ern pub­lic rela­tions is the con­stantly chan­ging media land­scape. With the pro­lif­er­a­tion of social media, the rise of fake news, and the decline of tra­di­tion­al journ­al­ism, it can be dif­fi­cult for organ­isa­tions to con­trol the spread of inform­a­tion and pro­tect their reputations.

When Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge pub­lished Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR in 2009, it pro­posed how PR should embrace the digit­al-first media land­scape and elev­ate our pro­fes­sion to new heights. ³Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. … Continue read­ing

As we choose our future as pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als, we must real­ise that the inter­net and its algorithms are more power­ful than a few (barely sur­viv­ing) newspapers.

The era of tra­di­tion­al print media is over:

Digital-first is no longer a mat­ter of per­spect­ive — it’s a promise.

If we allow the world to think of PR pro­fes­sion­als as out­dated flacks, we’ll fade into obli­vi­on while armies of digit­al mar­keters take over our responsibilities.

PR pro­fes­sion­als must be stra­tegic and pro­act­ive in their approach and able to adapt to new tech­no­lo­gies and plat­forms to com­mu­nic­ate effect­ively with their publics.

“The authors argue that earli­er paradigms are mostly inad­equate in address­ing the needs of a 21^st Century in which com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy is cre­at­ing rap­id glob­al­iz­a­tion while it is dan­ger­ously exacer­bat­ing the ten­sions of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. Through a crit­ic­al dis­cus­sion of pri­or assump­tions and paradigms in pub­lic rela­tions schol­ar­ship, the authors under­line the need for pub­lic rela­tions to revital­ize and bring its body of know­ledge into the 21^st Century.”
Source: Public Relations Review ⁴Valentini, C., Kruckeberg, D., & Starck, K. (2012). Public rela­tions and com­munity: A per­sist­ent cov­en­ant. Public Relations Review, 38(5), 873 – 879. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​p​u​b​r​e​v​.​2​0​1​2​.​0​6​.​001

The biggest chal­lenge in PR is ensur­ing that our pro­fes­sion keeps up with new com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy and stays valu­able and rel­ev­ant as a busi­ness function.

So, what does this mean?

It means that digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tion is not a fad.
It means that we must adapt — or perish.

Learn more: PR Must Adapt (Or Die)

THANKS FOR READING.
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The Electronic Age

• The Electronic Age and The End of the Gutenberg Galaxy
• The Hippie Web is Dead (2005 – 2015)
• Enter the Money Web (2016 – Present)
• Techlash: The Great Digital Depression
• The Age of Epistemic Solipsism
• Digital Sharecropping

Artificial Intelligence

• PR Beyond AI
• The AI Content Explosion

Digital Transformation

• Digital Transformation: Overview
• Digital Transformation Hierarchy

Digital Public Relations

• PR Must Adapt — or Die
• Digital-First is the Way
• What is Digital PR?
• The Online Base Camp

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

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