I am going to have to equivocate somewhat on the answer to that question. I would say partly "yes," but to an increasing degree, absolutely "no."

Given the strong growth of the PR business of late, you might think me crazy (or at least misguided) to even pose the question. Believe me, I know all too well how successful the PR business has again become, especially after it literally fell off the cliff after the Dot Com bubble burst in 2000. PR agencies are booming again, even the high tech firms in Silicon Valley (and Alley). The result is that it is incredibly difficult to find good quality mid-level PR people. I know, I have tried multiple times with little success.

However, I repeat the question: Is PR still relevant? Particularly in an increasingly digital world where the media is fragmenting more and more each day. As I have been interviewing PR people recently to fill several positions at my integrated marketing communications firm, I have specifically listed social media/digital experience as a key criterion in the job descriptions. I assumed that contemporary PR executives would possess such experience, or at least some semblance of it. You know, knowledge of how to drive and manage messages, awareness and perceptions in a media environment where fewer and fewer people are getting their information and entertainment from the traditional sources that the PR business always relied upon (sources like TV, magazines, newspapers, radio, etc.).

Well, I have been sorely disappointed, and a bit surprised. Almost none of the candidates I have interviewed demonstrated any real, practical knowledge (and especially real-world experience) of how to truly use the new digital/social media to generate the kind of PR results that clients demand. Sure, people know what blogs are, and some candidates have even sent a pitch to bloggers (which frequently is the wrong thing to do, by the way). Everyone knew about social networking (they might have had a profile on LinkedIn), but their practical, actionable knowledge was razor thin (and sometimes nonexistent). What they typically understood was pitching traditional media, writing press releases, putting together media lists, managing press briefings, working editorial calendars, and developing messaging documents. Stuff I learned 25 years ago at Carl Byoir & Associates, once one of the largest PR agencies in the world, and which went out of business quite a number of years ago. (Why? Because it forgot how to compete and stay relevant in a changing PR industry.)

With just a few exceptions, the PR profession has not done a great job in the areas of practical training and education. That unfortunate performance is even worse with respect to "re-training" PR recruits on how to deal with the rapidly emerging digital media and communications environment. So here is another timely question: How will we conduct effective marketing PR targeted to a generation of consumers who never touch a newspaper or barely a magazine, who spend a huge amount of time on MySpace and increasingly Facebook (neither of which is particularly accessible to the usual PR tactics), and who get their information in bite-sized chunks from a myriad of media sources? Got the answer? If you do, I’d hire you. And, you are probably not going into PR.

We need to teach our PR practitioners the answer to that question (and many more I can think of, and probably you can, too), but we are clearly not doing it. I definitely have seen way too little evidence of this in the PR candidates I have been interviewing recently, many of whom worked at "hot" Silicon Valley technology PR shops that purport to employ "social media" techniques. Yep, I’m on Facebook, too.

Now, the "yes" part of my answer to the original question. I do still believe in PR as an important arrow in the integrated marketing communications quiver. I have been doing PR for more years than I care to admit, and believe it continues to play an important (especially educative) role in marketing, business overall, public affairs, etc. Indeed, crisis PR people (the Michael Sitrick’s of the world) seem to be doing better than ever. There seems to be no shortage of badly behaving executives and/or celebs that need crisis PR counselors’ help in dealing with negative publicity. And PR still is important in building awareness and legitimacy of business solutions in key trade media (online and offline). Yes, those media dinosaurs still exist, and the smarter ones are even thriving.

But, I still return to my earlier conclusion that the PR industry (even if it seems to be flying high right now), is in danger of becoming irrelevant in today’s marketing communications market. This is a market in which other players are quickly learning the digital game and adapting effectively to it with their strategies, tactics, media initiatives and measurement techniques. In virtually every major area of digital (especially the web), the leadership is being seized by other kinds of firms, including ad agencies (who are reinventing themselves as integrated marketing firms), interactive agencies, direct response firms, email marketing firms, a wide range of web 2.0 technology start ups and the new buzz marketing shops.

This last category really points up the danger for the PR industry’s weak embrace of digital. Viral marketing is arguably the hottest area of marketing today. Clients are increasingly clamoring for it. This might have been an area that would naturally have fallen to PR agencies and practitioners, but that is not what’s actually happening. Viral marketing is being co-opted by those other marketing entities, including a new class of web consultants who are steeped in the world of the social graph and seemingly have figured out how ideas can ignite online by tapping the social networks in just the right way, with the right content. Instead, PR people and their agencies appear to be content to just keep smiling and dialing, trying to get reporters to look at their news releases and interview their spokespersons.

I was fascinated to read the recent stories about the acclaimed San Francisco-based creative ad agency Goodby Silverstein and its urgent transformation to being an integrated communications firm that truly understands digital media. Goodby realized just a few years ago that it had reached the pinnacle of the creative ad agency industry, but was in imminent danger of missing the digital marketing parade that was rushing by them, largely fueled by demands of clients for new marketing solutions. So, according to press reports, the two GS founders said to their creative leaders: go digital, or go home (or, start looking). This was a wrenching change for a firm that was hugely successful, and traditionally focused on creative :30 second TV spots and gorgeous print. But, they knew it was change or die. And GS did change in a big way, and was even named Digital Agency of the Year by Ad Age last year.

To be sure, some PR firms have engineered similar transformations of their business. But, in my experience, the PR sector has been much slower to react to and re-tool for the new digital environment than other marketing agency categories. And that is a big risk for the PR profession overall. Because, clients are actively and aggressively looking for digital leadership and direction, and they will go to the marketing and communications partners who really can walk the digital walk, not just talk a good game. (Carl Byoir & Associates probably never saw its demise coming. It just melted away into irrelevance as the more competitive agencies blew by them.)

Is PR still relevant? Yes, in some areas of marketing and communications. But, the world is changing quickly and the PR profession could be left without a chair in the future if it does not start making real progress in transforming its basic strategies and operating methodologies to fit the real needs and opportunities of the emerging digital environment worldwide.

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