Memo to the PR Profession, budgets are there, just not for what we used to do

This post from the CEO of Traackr, Pierre Loic Assayag absolutely nails the current budgeting situation in most companies.  Companies are spending money, just not on the things they normally do, and the battle those budgets is not between Advertising and PR, but rather between traditional PR thinking that can't get beyond AVEs, HITS and Column Inches and the PR Pros that understand that two way relationships fueled by social media are the future. 

In the interest of transparency, I'm a client of Traackr and a huge fan of the service they provide. But Pierre Loic is so dead on this: 

For generations, mass media has governed marketing. TV alone would represent over 80% of an average marketing budget. Ad agencies have made a living of charging brands obscene amounts of money for creative and media buy.  A senior exec at one of the top ad agencies told me just a few months ago, “when I meet with a CMO for an hour, do you think I sell them a $15M ad campaign or $200k in social media?” This is still today’s reality in an ad agency. The truth is that the economic model of an ad agency is based on big dollars and social media is small dollars – ad agencies haven’t figured out how to earn money on it, and this is their Achilles’ heel.

For better or for worse, PR firms have experience working with small budgets. They have also cultivated the art of the two-way communication with their target required to perform on social media. In many ways, social media is very much an extension of PR’s existing business model that only requires tweaks to succeed, not a business overhaul. This is the edge PR has over advertising in the land grab for social media ownership and budgets.

And if that wasn't enough, Monster's new data on jobs and hiring confirms what I've been saying all along. We are not "PR People" or "Media Relations Managers" we should think of ourselves as "Communities Managers"  and we will never want for work. 

The number of social media-related jobs on Monster has surged 75% over the last year, O'Reilly said. About 155 positions are available a month, up from an average of 88 a month a year ago.

 

via traackr.com

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