The social web is an amazing place. It’s a place where each of us can say pretty much whatever we want. For me, social media is helping to empower a lot of things that I have been doing with my business, Comet Branding and using social media has created some other great opportunities that have created other opportunities on top of those.

Over the last few months that I have been hosting the Comet Branding Radio show, which is dedicated to sharing and discussing the progressive and evolving elements of branding, marketing and PR with the people leading the charge, several shows have sprung from memes that have run around the social web about PR.

At one point a bunch of people thought PR was dead. #1, #2, #3, etc. So, we discussed it with some cool people including Jennifer Leggio, Nicole Jordan, Keith O’Brien and Todd Defren. Listen to it here.

Man, that seems like ages ago already. Clearly, PR is not dead. Far from it actually, but thanks Robert Scoble and crew for helping to start the discussion. By thanking them or listing them above, I’m not approving of their perspectives. I’m thanking them, because it’s been great to take the online memes and bringing the discussion live on Comet Branding Radio. The written elements of the social web are cool, but live discussion can be even better. Although, I do respect their opinions and appreciate that they have taken the time to voice their concerns. Without critics we, as an industry, will not get better and there might not be as many people striving for greatness.

More recently, a group of people hosted a panel discussion called “Is Social Media Killing PR?” Jennifer Leggio presents the discussion and off-shooting meme very well here, so I am not going to attempt to recreate it. After all, what we are doing on the radio show is bringing the discussion live. Jennifer does point this out though:

“The way I see it, social media isn’t putting PR in jeopardy, but it has exposed a weakness in PR that was always there — too much focus on dialing for dollars and not enough focus on making PR stretch to support real business initiatives.”

As much as I am a fan and advocate for PR, its power and effectiveness – I am also a rabid critic of its misuse, lack of strategic thinking and ineffective execution. For every one person that is great at PR and through their work honors PR, there are another 10 who are acting in ways that tarnish PR reputation and re-enforce every negative stereotype ever used (maybe the number is cloer to 100). No matter what, It’s sad.

Throughout our past discussions is it very clear that PR is evolving and has to change. It’s a great discussion that will continue during the show on Wednesday. Please tune in and join the discussion [send questions and comment to @alkrueger on Twitter during the show].

The Changing Role of Public Relations as Media Evolves and Why Social Media is Not Killing PR
Brian Solis — Blogger, PR 2.0 and Bub.blicio.us; Author “Now is Gone” and Principal of FutureWorks
Jennifer Leggio — Blogger, ZDnet.com and Director of Strategic Communications, Fortinet
Nicole Jordan — Blogger, Bub.blicio.us and PR Director, The Rubicon Project