In following all those forward-thinking PR and media types on Twitter, I often lose sight of the profession’s various other dimensions. Information technology has created so many positive industry benefits to help us advance our clients’ communications objectives, we have a tendency to get lost in the digital sauce. Just consider:
- How Ford’s social media chief Scott Monty can mobilize his sphere of 24,000+ Twitter followers (and their followers and their followers) with less than 140 characters.
- How an apologetic Domino’s president took to YouTube to quell the employee-fed assault on his brand
- How listening to its customers helped Comcast temper the tenacious taint on its reputation
PR observers tend to forget just how much of the profession remains mired in a time sync of off-line connection and gossip fodder. Witness this first-person account of how one NYC publicist helped an unknown writer gain the recognition that qualifies as celebrity nowadays.
The piece posted last week to the (mostly) entertaining and insightful Daily Beast blog:
“One month ago, I was what people who care about the difference would call a nobody—no society connections, no celebrity boss, no trust fund to buy tables next to people who are people.”
Jessie Rosen, whose claim to fame is that her blog has been optioned for a TV show, retained Lizzie Grubman PR to open the PRoverbial doors (in exchange, I suppose, for the Daily Beast coverage).
“Kelly Brady—a seven-year LGPR veteran and one of the five MTV PoweR Girls—is my social concierge for the next three weeks. Kelly is a professional introducer. ‘This is Jessie Rosen—she has an amazing blog that they’re turning into a TV show!’ she tells every single person we come in contact with. Within 20 minutes of our first night out (drinks with InTouch magazine editors and a birthday party for longtime club promoter Jason Kim), I pick up five business cards, a freelance assignment, and some guy.”
So instead of advising Ms. Rosen to build her personal brand through the digital tools and channels that have elevated the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Hsieh and Robert Scoble — all relative unknowns prior to jumping on the social media bandwagon — Ms. Grubman’s PoweR Girl leveraged the simple “blog-to-TV” story meme on the vapid NYC party circuit to give her client that 15 minutes of fame (and perhaps more).
Some things change. Many things remain the same. And what’s wrong with that?