Like At The Birth Of PR?

Is customer reference management an untapped discipline like public relations might once have been? Was there a time when organizations didn’t proactively look for media opportunities or form strategies for maximizing their impact?

Take a look the definition of public relations from Wikipedia.

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics…Because public relations places exposure in credible third-party outlets, it offers a third-party legitimacy that advertising does not have.

I would argue that customer reference management is very much the same except the end points are between customer and the community: which may be prospects, investors, analysts or media themselves.

Certainly the credibility of third-party has the same effect. Yet surprisingly, organizations are just beginning to give focus and attention to manage this flow.

Today positive and negative information flows in ways like never before. It seems remiss not to look for ways to maximize opportunities, amplify and channel constructive messages, and invest in strategies and programs towards those ends. I wonder what Bernays would have to say on the subject.