Entertainment PR Blog by AMP3

PR is all about those lightbulb moments

I realized on a recent trip to Florida that most people don’t really understand the function of Public Relations.  This came about as I had to explain my job as a publicist to some elderly companions celebrating my great-uncle’s 85th birthday.

The quick answer I generally give is, “I help people with something to promote promote it.”

That’s actually a terrible answer and doesn’t really do me much service with respect to getting people to actually understand what Public Relations is and why it’s important.

PR, as defined by Wikipedia, is “the practice of managing the flow of information between and organization and its publics.”

That’s a junk definition (not that mine was better), so I’m going to break it down a bit more thoroughly.

The function of Public Relations, regardless of the niche–doesn’t matter if it’s Music PR, Fashion PR, Book PR, PR PR, whatever–is to make sure a client’s newsworthy product or service is made known to the public via all possible media outlets.

As glamorized as PR has become through Samantha Jones and that  Lizzie Grubman MTV “reality” show, there’s a lot of work and innovation that goes into a successful PR campaign, and into being a successful publicist.

Between establishing a campaign that will ensure the highest degree of success, there’s also maintaining relationships with media professionals, networking (whether it’s on Twitter at an event or otherwise), and general maintenance, someone working in PR is working constantly.  PR would be a different beast if it were just three martini lunches and two-cheek kisses; the fact of the matter is there is always a new angle or a new contact to reach out to, so there is always work to be done.

My re-defined definition of what I do may be a little wordier, but I think it better encompasses what someone working in Lifestyle PR actually does: I represent a wide variety of clients and work to make sure that the right people are talking to and about them in a positive way.  Publicists are communicators, figuring out the most effective way to let people know what they need to know, and then doing it as efficiently as possible.

Jackie for AMP3pr.com

@JackieBrook

Microblogging is all the rage.  People are so interested in everyone else’s business, but rather than taking the time out to express genuine concern, or allot the amount of time necessary to form valid, cogent opinions, we want to be flippant, hear a sound bite, and pass judgment.

I’ve recently been introduced to the treasure trove that is FMyLife.com, where people share their tragic tales of woe (often in 50 words or less), leaving off with the tagline of “FML” or “<expletive> my life.”

There used to be Livejournal and Deadjournal for bearing one’s soul.  Then we moved onto Friendster and MySpace, sites that were less about content and more about friends.  Next came Facebook, a more sterile version of all its predecessors, and finally we’re rolling with Twitter, a 140 character means of expression.

Status updates, tweets, FML posts, they’re all this form of microblogging that I don’t fully understand.

I don’t want that statement to be taken in a crotchety, “it’s new so I don’t like it” way, but rather, I’m wondering how devolved our interpersonal relationship have become.  Working in Public Relations, you realize very quickly that so much of what you do is based on networking and actually interacting with people.  With each great technological advance with the supposed goal of connecting us to other people with greater ease, we seem to be closing ourselves off and hiding behind whatever devices allow us to update, tweet and re-tweet.

What is even more interesting to me is that the news seems to be recycled.  These microblogging sites seem to be taking away our ability to produce original content. 

In Twitter, I searched, “Chris Brown” and this is what I came up with:

In the four seconds I started scanning all the responses, another 7 people mentioned Chris Brown.  There’s so much chatter, but none of it’s original. 

I think microblogging becomes confusing for me with respect to, well, why we actually need it.  What intense vainglory do we all have that we not only feel compelled to update people (sometimes by the minute) as to what we’re doing/thinking/feeling, but we also believe that people are equally interested?

Yes, I have personally found some significant use in sites like Twitter, but none of the opportunities I’ve come across were ones that wouldn’t translate to another medium.  A reporter looking for sources can tweet about it, can update their Facebook status, or can send an email to known contacts that might be able to assist him.  Odds are, all the people that follow the reporter on Twitter and are his friends on Facebook would be at the top of his email address book.

So there we have it, the reduction of our social media to 140 characters.

Then comes along a site like FMyLife.com which kind of turns things on its head.

How so, you may ask…

Well, now we’re not establishing a personal forum for which we can microblog about ourselves, but rather there’s a community outlet by which we can anonymously share our own failures while also anonymously engaging in Sschadenfreude  AND getting to vote on whether or not the people who are putting themselves out there actually deserve to suffer.

Here’s a small sampling of what sort of misery people post about themselves on the site:

 Maybe it’s the old soul in me, or perhaps the part of me that doesn’t necessarily want to broadcast that my one-night-stand recommended via text that I “take care of the pimples on [my butt]**,”  or maybe it’s the sliver of my personality that actually enjoys being understated, but this just seems like the beginning of the end.  How much more condensed can our conversations become?  We’re almost at the point where our interactions are just a series of links from one article to comment to blog to fansite to what-have-you.

I don’t really know what the best way to combat this epidemic is.  I don’t even know if this is really an epidemic to be worried about.  But I do know that the more we communicate via these types of sites, the less we’re able to communicate in person.

Tweet if you’re with me.

Jackie for AMP3pr.com

@JackieBrook 

**That was another FMLer;  I do not have one-night stands nor do I have acne on my butt.  Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things…