Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Are we over-relying on media relations in PR?

I’m talking about the broader scope of PR here–media relations, content marketing, social media marketing, community relations, etc.

For many years, media relations has been one of the core aspects of PR.

But, a number of stats and reports lately (not to mention consumer behavior trends in general) have got me thinking: We may be well past the tipping point....

A new study from the University of Houston does sort of throw a wrench into that line of thinking, though: it found that readers are more likely to remember things like, say, your client’s name and the products they sell when this information appears in print.

Here’s the key finding: after reading for 20 minutes and being asked to recall as many articles as possible:

• Print-only readers recalled 4.24 stories on average
• Online readers recalled an average of 3.35 stories

Interestingly, the gap grew even wider when it concerned the topics discussed in those stories and the main points made. Vox turned it all into a graph if you want to check out a visual representation....