Challenges in aligning PR and Interactive marketing

Today I continue a very recent and interesting discussion about the challenges in aligning PR and interactive marketing. There are two schools of thought on the topic:

Thought 1

PR firms are poised to lead the way in social media because they approach conversation influence from an earned media perspective — finding existing story lines and figuring out how to make their clients’ point relevant. PR firms with a digital development capability can use visual and dynamic storytelling to add a deeper layer of engagement–digital assets designed specifically for social media engagement.

Thought 2

In the past, PR has typically been responsible for communications with internal and external audiences; developing the communications strategy and leading the execution. For most organizations, interactive marketing includes all the “online” marketing stuff. Today, with so much more communication taking place online, it’s more common to see progressive interactive agencies managing all online communications efforts, particularly around blogging and other social media.

So which side is better equipped to manage a client’s social media strategy?

I think both PR and Interactive marketing, looking at the market dynamics today have a very critical role to play. I think both the activities in question are in fact more similar than one realizes, but their differences in perception drives them apart.

But while their services complement each other – positioning/branding, messaging/key words, impressions/click throughs, storytelling/application building – their strategies and success metrics are very different.

As a result, we create great tools that don’t necessarily extend PR’s finely crafted messages.  At the same time, the messages PR creates don’t always evolve to reflect the way users search for information. And we tend to overestimate PR results and underestimate interactive marketing’s. Our individual clients may be happy, but an overall social media strategy may suffer.

And so the larger question for me is not who wins the battle, but how do we tap the talents of both sides to align marketing and PR objectives?  How do you create a strategy that incorporates key words and messaging, click throughs and impressions and storytelling and technology?  

 In the end we may need to reframe the debate and demonstrate how PR and marketing and are extensions of one another, not opposites and not independent of each other.

Please do let me know your thoughts on what is the point where both PR and Interactive marketing meet.