Corporate pap just doesn’t wash.

I also think the best of our profession help spokespeople by being proactive and creative (and business-relevant!) in contributing ideas to enhance and explore notions touched on by the spokespeople themsleves.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Although Head of Communications with a focus on media relations, I quickly realised the importance of building integrated communication and marketing campaigns utilising email alerts, website flashes, media, inhouse client events, industry conference keynote speaking opps, internal market briefings,one on one client briefings etc, marketing collateral.
Our TL is part of our intensive sales campaigns, targeting programs and account management and has only grown in importance in the eyes of the firm’s leadership over the years.
Does it work? – check out the success of the professional services firms who have used this pathway to build eminence (for the brand and individual partner experts)as well as a door opener to senior executives confused by a change. As a PR practioner it is a must!

Perhaps it is a little different in the US to Australia, but in my experience op-eds are placed just as often as a proactive mechanism, often as part of a coordinated communication strategy, as much as a defensive, ‘why didn’t I get quoted fairly/accurately/at all’ response.

Also, I look at them more as enhancing the brand of an organisation by displaying thought leadership, rather than focusing on a specific call to action. Though, certainly, the latter very much has a place when taking the op-ed approach.

As to whether social media is a better bet than op-eds in traditional media, I think it just ‘depends’. It depends on the overall strategy of which the op-ed or social media program is part of, it depends on strategy goals/objectives and, of course, it depends on the target audiences.

And whilst the impact of social media campaigns may be easier to measure, I think the inherent third party endorsement of being in a reputable media outlet (not that I think many of them are that reputable, but we are talking target audience perceptions of ‘reputable’ and influential, here…) has a lot going for it. Some might even say it has a lot more going for it than a social media campaign.

But, and here is the critical point, there is no reason why they can’t be part of a coordinated whole.

So often, an op-ed is designed to represent a point of view that the reporter failed to include in a news story, or is designed to “get a message out” to op-ed pages readers. This is still largely output mentality — few of these op-eds include calls to action (aside from some of the op-ed work undertaken by industry organizations; here in the states they might include the National Association of Manufacturers, or the Financial Services Roundtable, for example.)

Of course, that may be a reflection on the continuing decline in newspaper readership and the advancement of television advocacy journalism.

Thought leadership is still a sought perception, but many of the tools upon which we could previously rely are falling into disfavor. Direct communication via organizational social media seems like a better bet than op-eds — especially because we can measure reader behavior when the content resides on our sites.