Out With the Old: I Think Not

Recently in my Social Media class we had to read a few chapters in The New Rules of Marketing and PR, written by David Scott. The book was pretty easy to follow, so I do recommend it for others to read.

In class, my teacher asked us about the first four chapters. She asked if we agreed with the whole concept of forgetting the old rules and following the new rules. The reason the book states that we should forget about the old rules is because the Internet and social media have changed all the old rules and that companies on the Web shouldn't follow them. While in class, I couldn't think of anything I disagreed with and thought it all to be true. However, then I started to think about it a little more, and you know what...



... I think I actually learned something. Thank you college! I believe that I learned that just because someone says it is a rule or says it is right, doesn't just make the rule right. People don't know everything.

In the book, Scott lists one of the old rules of PR as "companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release." Scott then states unless we plan to ignore the new rules and stick to just the old rules, then we need to ignore all the old rules. I don't think I really agree with this statement.

Sure, the Internet does allow for two way communication as opposed to one, and I can see how online news has changed the way companies do their news releases, but that one rule, I just can't shake it off as just an old rule, I think it should still be followed.

Companies can put out any news releases they want on their own sites, but as far as I'm concerned, if you don't have anything news worthy, why would people want to read it? Perhaps there is something that I'm missing, but I just don't get it.

A company can write an article about how a picture in their break room fell and broke so they had to replace it, but to me, that is insignificant news and most people are going to ignore the release. Furthermore, if the company continues to write releases that are insignificant eventually they are going to lose some credibility and people will not read them anymore.





I disagree that people should ignore all the old rules. Mostly, because I think companies should make sure that the news they are putting out there is significant. Yet, I do see how most of the old rules should be ignored in order to make an impact on the Web.

So, to my teacher, who asked us in class if there were any rules that we would argue, here is mine. There might be a flaw with my argument, and if someone sees what I do not, please leave a comment and let me know, because this does interest me, and I just can't seem to shake the concept of making sure things are newsworthy.