Weel, it’s official. The Council of Public Relations Firms has a whitepaper out on how Social Media is changing the face of PR practice.

This white paper exploring the transformative influence that social media tools and platforms are having on the public relations industry is getting some great reviews. 

It’s authored by Paul Rand, CEO of Zocalo Group and Giovanni Rodriguez,founder of Hubbub and it even impressed the deliciously wicked Strumpette:

“Paul’s is the voice of reason. He’s not taking a stand, per se. Read the paper carefully and pay particular attention to the last paragraph. It is a Call to Action to consider critically the state of the union and the consequence of what some are calling, “changing our DNA.” 

Watch the video of Jay Rosen in the Changing our DNA post – it’s food for thought.

Giovanni’s response to the Strumpette post is here

Key findings of the paper:

• The public relations industry is poised to excel in the era of
  social media due to the fact that public relations has always
  been about social influence
• A pitched battle among marketing disciplines has created a
  sense of urgency in the public relations industry. There is a
  feeling that it must respond swiftly and intelligently to the
  new opportunities in order to continue its robust growth
• Case examples of what leading public relations practitioners
  are currently doing in the area of social media, and how
  industry leaders are imagining the future    

A survey of Council member firms, conducted for this paper in April, reflected some of the trends taking place inside public relations firms:

• 84% of firms are actively engaged in blogosphere on behalf of clients
• 78% of participating member firms claimed that clients were
  interested (38%) to extremely interested (40%) in their social media capabilities
• Nearly half (49%) have a dedicated online/interactive group.
• 17% have plans to add this capability this year

So should you be rushing into Social Media?  Will it indeed change our PR DNA?

There is no question that times have changed.  Social Media and the Internet have changed the way people interact and communicate.  Read the Cluetrain again.  And since PR is about communication we have to embrace this new medium. Does it change who we are and what we do?  No.

Social media training and partnerships with social media agencies will be a hot item in the next six months.

We have several in-house training workshops booked for corporations and agencies and I am off to Singapore in September to do a two day workshop on social media for a group of 50 business leaders.

PR University is planning their Advanced PR Practice workshops for November. If you want to be on the Leading Edge, be sure to attend.