Since the birth of the web, digital communication has been often interpreted as technicality. Blogs, posts, Facebook, hashtags, have taken over the content. Which is become a commodity, i.e. something that could be used indifferently across multiple technical tools. The risk is was selling the soul to the numbers, in a run-up to views and "viral". But, after the initial intoxication, digital communication is rediscovering one's natural world of belonging: Public Relations, i.e. the strategic thinking that studies the dynamics of the market and which, having assimilated the skills, takes advantage of the infinite possibilities of the world of the web.
And the recent entry into Assorel, the association of public relations agencies, a company digital like Doing, an Italian digital agency, born from the union of Dnsee, Hagakure and Banzai Consulting marks this important step in the way of relating digital communication and public relations. Filomena Rosato, vice president of Assorel and entrepreneur, explains it to FIRSTonline, at the forefront of the problems of the evolution of the profession with Assorel Academy, the area of the association dedicated to training.
Which the meaning of entering a company as Doing in Assorel?
“It has the value of the recognition of Assorel as a representative association of the PR industry which places firm points on level communication and guarantees this by interpreting and supporting the needs of the market. The dialogue between Assorel and Doing was possible starting from the comparison on the evolutionary processes of the profession and from the commitment demonstrated, also with the training, of an association that wants to be a place for the construction of thought, alive and projected towards the future in definition of new business models. Doing felt at ease in this associative dimension and this is the best response to the efforts made so far".
How has the advent of the web changed the world of communication and public relations?
“In an already saturated market, albeit increasingly global and competitive, the advent of the web was perhaps the necessary shock to reset everything and put oneself to the test by initially entering a world without rules, without borders, without absolute benchmarks . This has caused great disorientation for the new and great confusion. All this coincided with the great financial and economic crisis which forced a rethinking of economic models, of business and therefore also of investments. Companies have begun to wonder about the right return on an investment and what communication choices to make. Everything had to change, but the question was 'how' to change without distorting oneself”.
In what sense?
“Major transformations open up new spaces and bring new affirmation opportunities for those who seem to have the solution at hand. Very pragmatically, for the world of communication and for the reference market, this has meant having new types of professionals and new specializations as interlocutors, sometimes difficult to understand. The web agency phenomenon, which lasted for a long time, was the simplest and most immediate response to change, initially based on the ability to know how to use the new technicalities and new opportunities offered by the web, sometimes instinctively, sometimes to the detriment of content consistent with the philosophy of the client company, with its valuable assets. In this phase of digital communication, the importance of listening to 'voices' in the blogosphere had not yet emerged and the content was given as a commodity”.
And now?
“Just the need for governance of the conversation on the web, the construction of corporate reputation and its protection enhance the identity role of PR in the digital world, as strategic thinking and guide in the development of corporate storytelling, in protecting reputation. PR has long understood the technicalities and new languages of the web, they have assimilated them professionally, they have made them their own in external consultancy by inserting them in a planning approach functional to the needs of the company's demand for consultancy and services. And after all, planning and breadth of vision are in PR's DNA, the ability to know how to be inclusive in favor of more global knowledge at the service of the company and its objectives of success”.
What is not been understood?
Perhaps the prejudice of often wanting to identify Public Relations only with the press office or with the pure management of an event. Assorel has worked hard on overcoming this gap in recent years and developed its training activity. After the exploits of internet technicians and the frantic accumulation of likes, we have entered the phase in which content is also central to digital communication and technological know-how is at the service of quality and the message. Extreme accessibility makes everything on the web seem easy, creating a website or your own Facebook page, activating your own Twitter account, uploading videos to Youtube, but the consequent disintermediation is the real problem in your positioning strategy. There is a discrepancy between the ease and accessibility of the web and the difficulty of companies understanding the skills needed to communicate with those tools. Now the importance of strategic thinking in the impact with stakeholders on the web has also become central in digital skills, enhancing the role of Public Relations and business communicators.
Yet it seems that we are victims of a “dictatorship of likes”
Here the complicated relationship between quality and quantity comes into play, a Gordian knot to be untied in the ongoing transformation. Today digital communication seems to be made for a run-up to global, stratospheric numbers. But the problem is to convey the information on relevant channels for the client, not to put a video on Youtube, or 100 likes on Facebook, perhaps bought from a server. In reality, the relationship between quality and quantity must be recovered, also through the training of communicators and businesses, a front on which Assorel has been working for some time.
As it is mail Assorel in these phases of change of communication?
Eight years ago he began to delve into digital issues by creating Assorel Academy and setting himself some fundamental objectives: 1) how to interpret change without distorting the essence of the profession; 2) how to keep the relationship between quality and quantity of consultancy and services balanced in the face of the contraction and modification of market investments in communication.
Assorel has understood the need of its associates to be competitive in a market that is increasingly oriented towards a demand for digital communication and training is the place in which to cultivate and 'build thinking' by acquiring skills and knowledge, not only in digital, enhancing the DNA of the profession. The mission of Assorel Academy is to maintain a high quality of consultancy and services in the context of change, with training initiatives aimed at both members and the market. The highest task today is in fact also to help our interlocutors to understand us and to understand the changes.
