Is a public relations degree worth it?

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Over on his personal blog at Rock Star PR Jed Hallam has sparked quite a debate (20 comments at the time of writing this) on the value of PR degrees. If you haven’t already seen it you should check it out and add your comments. I’ve added mine and reproduced it below:

“Wow Jed, what a response. Where do I start to add my comments as a lot of it has already been said.

I suppose my answer would be it depends. I’m a very firm believer in the value of PR qualifications and certainly anyone with less than about ten years’ experience has to offer me something ’special’ to counter the fact they don’t have one. When I first graduated I paid personally to put myself through completing the CAM Diploma in PR as weekend classes.

I think the real value of PR degrees isn’t necessarily when you first start work. Some of the technical skills can reasonably be learnt ‘on the job’. It gets more useful a few years later when the really good PR students tend to be the ones that become best at seeing strategic comms within the overall business and organisational context.

I also very much agree with David Brain’s comment about the importance of ‘extra-curricular’ stuff on a CV. What most impresses me, regardless of what degree someone has done, is what else they’ve done over and above what they had to. On a PR degree you have to get some experience, either as a year out or during the degree. That don’t impress me much. What does is what you’ve done for your student union, a local charity, community or pressure group, a political party - you get the idea. I want people who are willing to put something back into society because you want to, not because you have to. If people can’t be bothered then Wolfstar definitely isn’t the best place for them to start job hunting!”

Blogger relations tips from Womma’s Andy Sernovitz

Andy Sernovitz has an interesting post on ‘How to get a blogger to write about you’. As well his advice on the correct and incorrect approach he also has some comments on hiring a PR company to manage blogger relations. I’ve commented on Andy’s blog, but thought it was worth expanding on them here:

1. Hire a firm with proven, long-term, personal relationships with the bloggers

This sounds good until you start to analyse it and realise that it would be almost impossible for a client to actually find a public relations firm that had relationships with the specific bloggers it needs to have a relationship with. Most clients that we work with what us to advise them on what the relevant blogs for their industry, sector or products are. Sometimes the answer will be blogs that at least one person in our team knows well. In other cases we’ll be operating in a new space and the challenge and enjoyment is exploring it and really getting to understand it, before ever engaging in blogger outreach. To expect a client to find a public relations company that already has relationships with “the” client’s specific bloggers is asking the impossible.

What is right is that if you’re hiring a PR firm to do blogger relations then you must make sure it has done it before and that it’s team totally embraces, lives and breathes social media. Check out the team’s social media profiles and ‘rankings’ before you appoint them. Don’t fall for appointing a PR company that only superficially uses social media and has set-up blog and Twitter accounts etc just to show that they are ‘doing it’.

2. Supervise them very, very closely

I understand why Andy is saying this – there are so many examples of PR firms doing social media and blogs really badly. However, just supervising them closely isn’t going to make much difference as it assumes the client knows what to do. Most don’t, that’s why whey hire PR consultants as advisors, because the consultants have more experience and expertise. That’s the main point about hiring a consultancy is that they know more about it than you do.

3. Insist on complete disclosure of the relationship

On this one I totally agree with Andy. But it is no less than is required by trade and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Womma and WOM UK.

4. Do NOT let them delegate the job to a junior account exec

This is a very nice idea, but totally unrealistic as many clients might not have the budget to just have senior folk do the work. What you do need to do is assess the calibre of the whole team that will work on your account and look at what training and other quality control processes are in place.

5. Review every email that is being sent on your behalf

In my view this is just the same as point 2 and just doesn’t make sense. Indeed it could back fire very badly with the client trying to put some of the marketing hype back in, that the PR consultancy has taken out!

A good rule of thumb: Do not trust someone to pitch a blogger for you who has never eaten food with the blogger.

A good sound bite, but not such a good rule of thumb.

If your PR firm embarrasses your company, you take the reputation hit forever. They move on to the next client.

Too true, that’s why you need to have the right public relations company to advise you on social media and blogger relations.

Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media

The Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media conference is having another outing and I’m on the bill. Conference producer Andy Wake says:

“The Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media takes place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester on Friday 5 December and will examine the strategic opportunities and benefits of new media and online PR alongside a wealth of case studies. Some of the hottest names in UK PR will be travelling to the city. Full details on the conference can be found as a PDF on the Don’t Panic website.”

Wolfstar wins outstanding small consultancy of the year

Last night, the Wolfstar team spent the evening at the Queens Hotel in Leeds. We went out on mass to the CIPR’s Pride Awards as we were short listed for the Outstanding Small Consultancy of the Year. I am delighted to say we managed to win and I am extremely proud of all of the team as their hard work is now really starting to pay off.

Wolfstar has only been going for around 18 months now and we have managed to grow from three people to more than nine (we were less than five when we wrote the submission) – so it looks like we may have to go for the larger version of this award next year.

Wolfstar is UK-based public relations consultancy run by award-winning PR consultants. We provide strategic corporate communications counsel and deliver successful tactical PR campaigns including media relations, online PR, crisis communications, stakeholder relations, product launches and event management.

Above all we are focused on delivering effective public relations and reputation management solutions that deliver real results to help our clients achieve their business objectives. Our successful PR campaigns can help you to increase sales, recruit and retain staff, improve community relations, lobby to change legislation – whatever your organisation needs to achieve.

Some of the public relations services where we provide expertise include:

• Corporate communications strategy and planning
• Media relations
• Online PR, social media and social networks
• Word of mouth public relations
• Crisis communications management
• Stakeholder relations
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Community relations
• Event management

How to do PR in 2008

Shel Holtz has a great story that illustrates how really savvy PRs should be operating in today’s always connected society. It’s about a US magazine (MAD) and a big electronics retail chain (Circuit City). The magazine ran a spoof Circuit City ad (sort of sub-Private Eye style) and an executive at Circuit City took umbrage and order the mag to be cleared from the shelves and destroyed.

As you’d expect in today’s citizen journalist world the offending email was leaked and published in the blogosphere (on Consumerist). The story then took off and received 114 comments, an amazing 1935 Diggs (with a further 165 comments) and was picked up by AP.

But, this is where it gets really good. Instead of acting like a big, old, dumb corporate Jim Babb, a savvy PR in Circuit City’s corporate communications department sent a witty email that: a) Admitted the mistake; b) Tried to put it right; and c) Apologised.

The result was acclaim from The Consumerist and the apology received 63 comments – almost universally positive.

Shel quite rightly points out that the mistake should never have been made in the first place. It’s essential that potential reputation issues are run past the experts (i.e. the public relations people) and that every manager and indeed employee has a basic grasp of when they might need to take counsel.

The story illustrates how word of mouth marketing can be negative as well as positive, so it pays to get expert advice to help you manage it.