STEVE RUBEL'S CALL TO ARMS FOR THE PR INDUSTRY... WELL, WANT SOME WEAPONS?

Steve has a great post over at his Micro Persuasion's blog, and it was partly stimulated by his meeting with Tony last week. It's cool because these are the conversations that we been having at GoingOn over the past several months as we mapped out our market entry strategy. We have already been in deep discussions with various PR firms and definitely see them as partners that will be using our platform.

It's funny because some of our competitors, such as Blogtronix, don't see the relevancy of Public Relations in the new media and Web 2.0 world, and they go around stating that "PR is dead."

Of course, we take the opposite view and will be one of the partners and tools to help PR firms educate and empower their clients in this growing next wave of media. So if you're a PR firm and interested in learning more about the GoingOn blogging/communication platform, just email me from your work email account and we can start the conversation:) Steve's post:

This afternoon I had lunch with Tony Perkins from AlwaysOn. We discussed his new project - GoingOn - and so much more. One thing Tony and I agreed on is that the marketing community has got 75% of social media mastery under its belt. They conceptually get its importance, how it evolves marketing from a monologue into a dialogue and the importance of listening. What they don't get is the last 25% - how to put this into action immediately. They don't know how to subscribe to RSS feeds and, what's more, develop conversational marketing programs. This is where the money will be made.

This was very consistent with a conversation I had last week with Andrew Bernstein from Cymfony. Andrew's seeing a lot of demand for Cymfony's Consumer Insights tools, but he's frustrated that he can't help them go the distance. He wants to help them master the last 25%. But, you see, that's not his job. Cymfony and others like Intelliseek give their clients lots of rich data and insights but they don't tell them what to do with that information. That's our job.

Now I am biassed, but this is where I think the public relations agencies come in. This is our brass ring. Let's grab it. There will be enough business to go around for all of us. We're not competitors. We're partners. We need to really help marketers understand how to put this into action. That's why I was critical of Edelman's survey. Like everything else, all it did was just give marketers more data.

What we need to do is teach. We need to show PR professionals, media buyers and others how to read RSS feeds. We need to help them get immersed in writing blog posts so they get a feel for what works/doesn't. We need to show them how to monitor blog search feeds and then, appropriately, respond. Believe me, I would love to do this myself and see my agency win the lion-share of dollars here. But I can't. This is too big. We need to do this together guys. (full post)