Business in Vancouver recently featured an article on Public Relations and Social Media. We were thrilled when Glen Korstrom contacted Curve Communications’ CEO and President George Affleck for his thoughts on how Public Relations can adapt to the ever changing environment of online social networking. Here’s what George, and some other Vancouver PR companies, had to say:

PR Sector Grapples with Social Media

Changing technology throws industry-wide spin into traditional career advancement model for aspiring publicists

The rise of social media is rattling the foundations of business models at public relations companies across Metro Vancouver.

That shake-up has forced some agencies to close, which in turn has increased the number of independent public relations consultants at a time when younger, aspiring PR professionals are opting to go it alone.

They say the traditional model of career advancement in public relations is “broken” and that establishing a reputation as a social media expert is a better springboard to a successful career than is slowly climbing the ladder at a traditional agency to be an account manager.

“Traditional agency models seem to be going the way of the dinosaur,” said Patrick Lok, who prefers the title of “town crier” at fast-growing do-it-yourself website-seller CityMax.

“The career path of going to a big public relations agency to do pitching, writing releases and making connections in the old-school traditional method is no longer the route that people are supposed to take.”

Lok believes the current smart career route is to build social networks via Facebook, Twitter and other online avenues while working on projects – sometimes as a volunteer. Lok conceded that social media is only one tool in a publicist’s arsenal, but he said it’s changing the industry because younger people tend to be more adept at social media and it reduces the need for what have been core services offered by traditional agencies, such as keeping clipping files for clients.

Industry veteran Mat Wilcox agreed that the clipping services part of the business has been rendered virtually obsolete. She said Google and social media sites make it easy for clients to find out what’s being said about them.

That contributed to her decision to close her agency at the end of August and become a social media consultant.

“The things we used to do in the past aren’t as effective anymore, because everything is direct,” Wilcox said. “It’s either direct to customer, direct to shareholders or direct to consumers. The first go-to place is going to be social media now. That’s what I’m going to be studying and figuring out the best resources and tools for how to do it right.”

But other longtime PR professionals who started paying attention to social media several years ago believe it’s an exaggeration to say that the public relations business model is broken.

“It has drastically changed,” said AHA Creative Strategies Inc. principal Ruth Atherley.

She remembers getting blank stares four years ago when she suggested that a client write a blog.

Today, they’re starting to realize that blogs and tweets can boost their ranking on Google, which is as good a reason as any to engage in those activities.

Atherley and others, such as Curve Communications principal George Affleck and former Quay Communications principal Della Smith, stress that social media is merely one tool that a public relations professional should have.

Other skills include knowing the value and best way to use media buys, guerilla marketing and websites.

Social media closes the gap between the speaker and the receiver of the information, said Affleck, but there’s still room for newspapers.

He added that newspapers might not be as dominant as they once were, but their decline does not bring with it the demise of public relations.

“Sometimes people think public relations is media relations,” Affleck said. “Media relations is a component of public relations, which is reaching the public however possible.”

Smith said she wound down her agency last summer, not because business was slow, but because she wanted to write a book – a task she has yet to complete.

“Social media is another tool, but it’s not as though communications is going away,” Smith said. “People need communications more than ever.”