Are PR agencies ruining Facebook?

PR agencies are ruining Facebook by taking a “presence over purpose” approach  asserts Daniel Stein on DigiDay.

It’s a harsh but probably accurate view of the agency space – advertisers create content and then try and work out how to socialise it as an afterthought while many PR agencies are “boring [fans] to death” by making branded small talk.

Ouch. But is it true? And if so, where is it going wrong?

Numbers vs. Interactions

Stein’s article talks about the importance of engaging fans and this is probably the singular biggest misunderstanding by brands and the agencies which advise them.

You see, while a site like Famecount can tell you who are the biggest brand pages it can’t tell you the best for interactions.

And size really doesn’t matter. Why? Because:

• It doesn’t frame size of brand page in relation to global brand presence e.g. McDonalds & Coke don’t compare with the ‘Mom & Pop shop’ operating only in one local market
• In Facebook Interaction = Distribution. Fans don’t come to a page to read the latest updates, they rely on popular content showing up in their news feed 85% of the time. Popularity relates to the number of people who interact with that content [Read more on How Facebook Decides What To Put In Your News Feed]
• Many pages are growing and maintaining Facebook fans simply by running promotions – hardly ‘true’ fans

PR agencies only do Earned Media

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) media is converging rapidly online between Paid, Earned & Owned Media but the humble PR agency and their associated tactics haven’t caught up.

Stein quite rightly points out that ad agencies are still busy making media but traditionally PR agencies worked with media owners direct to develop their content or media media thus ‘earning’ their place in conversations.

Isn’t the real problem that PR agencies aren’t runing Facebook but that they’ve spoken to traditional media outlets for so long they’ve forgotten how to talk directly to customers?

 

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Gordon Hector of Fishburn Hedges also responded to Steins’ original post.

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