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Instant messaging has changed the way people communicate while at
work (“Quick…Do u know where 2 find that report?”) and at play
(“OMG…IMHO, I think the brunette at the café likes my jokes.”) Be it
via Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, or open-source alternatives, instant messaging
is carving out its own niche in the workplace, as both a
quick-response mechanism and method of “presence detection” --
finding out whether the person you want to talk with is actually at
his or her desk.
The fact that instant messaging is in use at PR firms is clear.
Employees use it within the firm to get fast answers to everyday
questions, and sometimes -- frankly -- to skirt around whatever
supervisory email monitoring agencies have in place. IM has also
been proven quite effective within the agency/client relationship.
With one client, I’ve found that it is an effective tool for
communication when either 1) only a quick answer is required, and 2)
things are moving so fast that the notion of opening a new email
message window or dialing a phone seems like a unwieldy, unwelcome,
and painfully slow prospect.
None of this is news to the
average PR professional, particularly one employed in the technology
field. But, consider the use of IM as a media relations
tool.
Or not.
Please.
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My research is hardly scientific, but the findings are
nevertheless difficult to ignore and, well, incredibly predictable.
With many PR pros are still learning restraint when it comes to
email and phone usage, it is unlikely that PR pros will be using IM
as a matter of everyday practice in media
relations.
Freelancer Brian Robinson put it plainly: “If
PR/media communications remain what they are today -- a way for
companies and organizations to let media know about products and
corporate issues in a formal manner -- [IM in PR] will be a
non-issue.” ‘Nuff said.
The reasons for this fall under the
rubric of what a former supervisor of mine would call a BFO:
“blinding flash of the obvious.” I figure, though, if I just save
one reader from making an egregious media relations faux pas that he
or she would have otherwise committed -- and you have done
worse -- then job-well-done. I can then go home, drink an oil-drum’s
worth of French-pressed Sumarian coffee, blast the new Sepultura
live CD until the neighborhood kids run screaming to the next
county, and play Star Trek: Armada II until my eyes bug out. (You
still have done worse.)
Here are a few reasons, based
on my own discussions with journalists, why the issue of IM in PR
might be DOA.
“No, You’re Never Gonna Get It”
I
actually have a couple of journalists on my Yahoo! Messenger buddy
list. Having the IM handle of a journalist means that a highly
trusted relationship has been created, since the potential for abuse
is so high. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked for a PR person’s IM, nor
been asked for mine by a PR person,” said Red Herring Venture
Capital Reporter Julie Landry.
Freelance journalist
Constance Loizos echoes that same sentiment. “I love IM, but it can
be intrusive, of course. I’d never IM anyone with whom I didn’t have
a fairly close personal or working relationship,” she said, adding,
“I wouldn’t want to be IM’d by anyone outside that
circle.”
“We Control The Horizontal And The
Vertical”
Unsolicited IMs, with their habit of hijacking your
computer’s active desktop window, understandably represent a
particularly distasteful concept for many journalists. “It would be
pretty annoying to have [messages] constantly popping up on your
screen, and the article you’re working on,” said Wireless Reporter
Elisa Batista of Wired News.
If the journalist’s name
is anything close to his or her real name, said journalist may be
open to interruption if an overly zealous PR pro searches the IM
service’s membership directory. This, of course, is easily prevented
by 1) running the IM client software in “hidden” mode, concealing it
from other users, and 2) keeping the handle off of the service’s
membership directory (regrettably, an “opt-out,” in most
cases).
Presence detection is also an issue. If the
journalist neglects to “hide,” there is some fear that the PR pro
would know that he or she still is near the desk, perhaps making an
increased pest-like effort to gain attention.
Stick With
What Works
Email is a perfectly fine, just-fast-enough method
of communication, making the issue of using IM in PR rather moot.
“I’m at the computer nearly all day,” said Jim DeTar who covers the
semiconductor industry for Investors’ Business Daily. “Any
email that comes in usually gets instant response, so I have sort of
a ‘virtual’ instant messaging thing going.”
Red
Herring’s Landry also falls within the
email-is-just-fine-thank-you camp. “I think that email will prevail
as the preferred method of communication with PR people because it’s
easy to file/store, easy to deal with on one’s own terms and
schedule, easy to reply to if necessary, and easy to delete.” (Oh,
c’mon. You knew that last one was coming, right?)
In closing,
here are some interesting articles on IM that I’ve noticed
recently:
That’s it for now, sports fans. I’d hang around more, but I’m
writing you from a café. I’m getting glares from the staff because
my overpriced latte only pays my posterior-planting real estate for
just so long. See you next time!
Phil Gomes, a member of PR News’
2002 “Fifteen-to-Watch” list, is a co-founder of G2B Group, a uniquely
technology-focused corporate communications consultancy. The firm is
engineered from its foundations to help today's innovative companies
tell their entire story -- from the research center and the corner
offices to the audiences that matter.
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