Judging by its valuable tweet soundbites, PRSA’s International Conference (#PRSAICON) this week sounded like a huge success — very informative with a great group of expert speakers and savvy attendees. One presentation really stood out for me — PR Newswire Director Michael Pranikoff’s The Convergence of Paid, Earned & Owned Media.

While Mike’s preso is nearly 90 slides total (and still worth the read!), I think this single slide sums up Inbound PR’s role perfectly:

In short…

• Paid Media = show me the $$$ (but make sure PRs drive visitors/attendees/subscribers/etc.)
• Earned Media = traditional media/analyst/influencer outreach, speaking & awards
• Owned Media = content, content, content, content, content
• [Social Media = share media across all channels via social networks]

Now, let’s back this up with some data. Traditionally, PR has fallen into the “Earned Media” bucket. But what about “Owned Media”? A recent survey based on a poll of 740 members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn found B2B marketers use content marketing to achieve (top 3):

1. Lead generation: 68%
2. Thought leadership/market education: 50%
3. Brand awareness: 39%

The most popular content tactics were:

1. Case Studies (62%)
2. Whitepapers & eBooks (61%)
3. Press Releases (58%)
4. Newsletters (55%)
5. Blogging (51%)

LinkedIn was the most popular social media platform at 85%, followed by Twitter (70%), Facebook (54%), and YouTube (53%).

There’s QUITE a bit of overlap across Marketing, Advertising and PR here. It’s clear to me that it’s time to ditch the Venn diagram. The lines aren’t blurred; they’re disappearing.

The role of a rockstar Inbound PR pro is to facilitate Paid Media, curate Earned Media, create Owned Media, and share via Social Media.

A tall order? Yes. But nothing we can’t handle. As PR/Media Strategist Peter Himler said in a recent Forbes article:

“For PR pros, it’s no longer sufficient to rely on earned media coverage to drive action. A good catalyst, yes, but it’s how you merchandise that coverage that matters today — even if it means paying (God forbid) for amplification in the mediaspheres.”

And to wrap this post up with those excellent #PRSAICON tweet soundbites mentioned above…

If you want media exposure, then become the media. ow.ly/euGun #ContentMarketing #PublicRelations #PRSAICon

— Lee Odden (@leeodden) October 15, 2012

 

Brands are publishers (AMEX Open), consumers are journalists (CNN iReport) & PR is converging with marketing via @leeodden #prsaicon

— Crescendo Collab (@CrescendoCollab) October 16, 2012