Amber MacArthur of the Globe & Mail released an article this week examining how social media is putting the pressure on public relations, specifically in the wake of Canadian PR firm Wilcox Group closing shop. In a blog post, Mat Wilcox attributed the decision to the rise of social media and lack of a firm financial model to accompany it. The proclamation that traditional public relations are a thing of the past created shock waves through the community, with many wondering whether the industry can survive.

The reality is that the traditional model is changing at a rapid pace and firms that cannot evolve and harness the power of social media will become obsolete. Previously, PR firms could bill clients by the hour for creating, pitching and liaising with reporters as many companies didn’t have the in-house resources or media contacts to do so on their own. Free sites like Facebook and Twitter have allowed companies to bring much of the work in-house, as they no longer need the major media channels to reach their publics. In addition, crisis communications are being played out in a manner of hours through social media instead of days or weeks through traditional channels. Therefore, the same hourly based financial model cannot be applied to PR pros monitoring social media. Firms need to adapt and progress if they want to stay relevant.

Smaller, niche-services communications firms — whether in traditional PR, social media, online marketing, conversion optimization, consulting or email marketing — will have an  advantage as long as they are able to prove the return on investment to the client. The traditional measurement of AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency), where firms can take a press clipping and assign it a value based on the cost of advertising space, cannot be translated in the world of new marketing and PR. Social media and online marketing, however, offer numerous measurement tools, where higher page rankings, web traffic, conversion rates and social media prominence offer tangible results to the client. As such, services can be tailored to a client’s preferences and needs.

As the landscape is continuously evolving, it is important for companies to stay current on emerging trends or they will be left behind. For many businesses the talent does not exist in-house, so companies now have a cost-effective solution to engage communications firms in a la carte services to meet their marketing goals.

While traditional marketing and public relations are not dead — there is still an appetite for newspaper, radio and television coverage — the rise of new communications is forcing companies to layer on additional services to compliment their existing programs. By engaging niche firms — like OutFromTheCrowd.com — companies can leverage the rising power of the internet to gain tangible and measurable results that are directly linked to revenue and the bottom line.