The Old School Way to do PR is making a comeback, with the downfall of Twitter to a shadow of its former self and the algorithms of Instagram as so stacked against the average user unless you either pay for their promotion or know what hashtags to use and piggyback on. Unfortunately your average user does not do both of those scenarios. There is Facebook and Tik Tok too but the same rules apply. Doing one’s own PR is the biggest mistake anyone can make one can only get so far and you will get no further; from music to entertainment to authors to actors, etc those industries are a BUSINESS and if you are not willing to invest in those businesses along with yourself it is full stop on your chosen career.
The best example is the Music Business, with approximately 50 thousands songs coming out on a daily basis across all platforms, the music you just put out today, or last week and even last month gets buried under 50 thousand other songs DAILY. With each day that passes the chances of people actually hearing your music or discovering your music dwindles down. Sure you can do a “Paid Promotion” on social media and “ask” aka beg people on your Twitter (which is a shite show now) and Facebook for people to stream your song(s), but once again you will only get so far and you will hit a brick wall. But the situation is not dire with a Public Relations Specialist behind you, pushing you and your music out to people in the right way, the organic dogged approach way more people will discover you and your music, as they should.
Playlists are a SCAM, you pay a hundred or so amount of money and you get on a particular playlist. However you are only on it for a fixed amount of time then you are taken off. Radio Promotions aka Plugging can be effective but then it is a similar situation, you will pay a few thousand dollars to get your song on rotation for anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks. After that they will not play your song. There is a solution the Old School way of Radio Pitching to Independent Radio Stations worldwide, it is something that only a publicist can do and is approached how things used to be done. Sending the song to Radio programmers and DJs asking them to check out a song then add it to rotation, that way it gets on organically and will stay on rotation instead of ending, Once your song is heard on the radio people will either remember it or shazam it thusly adding it to their own playlist. It is akin to back in the day when you would hear a song on the radio, love it and run out to the record store to buy the song on a 45”/ cassette single/ CD single .
Old School PR goes back to the roots of how Public Relations used to be but still incorporates the use of Social Media but done the right way. It is not about posting something on Instagram or some other social media platform every hour or for that fact every day. Reaching out to editors where you don’t have to pay for posts, mainly sticking to blogs and other publications that a publicist has built up relationships with over the years. From a press release to social media content along with tagging on Instagram posts only an experienced publicist knows how to string together the right words and phrases for the best impact. It is a case of Slow and Steady Wins The Race, the parable of the Tortoise and The Hare along with an infusion of Scathinlgy Brillliant Ideas. One must not confuse the connotation of Scathingly as this is the British definition of always changing, growing and evolving with an intense degree. That is something that is truly needed to really expand your footprint be it from music to actor, chef to author anything really.
In conclusion whilst the industry as a whole has changed dramatically and publicists have changed with it both are with the good and the bad. With AI writing things it really does not have the flair of a real journalist or publicist who has the eloquence of a wordsmith. The tried and true ways will always prevail, there are only a handful of publicists out there who still do things the old school way, who will be blatantly honest about how the whole of the industry works and lay it on the line.
The agency heading up the Old School PR approach is The Balfour Agency; the Agency that has been in the business since 1992 , trained by 2 of the Top Publicists in the business Shirley McLean and Lynn Franks. Follow on Instagram @I_PR_Things email amgcpv@gmail.com for all enquiries
