PR professionals are so often the victim of the vicious label “spin doctor.” The common thought is PR pros make people believe in your products or services, no matter how unimportant they may be in the lives of others.

If you are good at PR, there is no need for spin or even a pitch. All you have to do is tell the truth. Give out the information you have and answer questions directly and concisely. Really. No used car salesman tactics needed. No neuro-marketing research required. If the products or services are important to the audience, they will bite. The days of the hard sell and mass press releases are over.

With the rise of social media, and public relations merging and meshing into the technological world, being transparent and concise is absolutely critical. Take full advantage of the uber-niches that social media provides. Don’t pitch these people and talk at them.  Engage and talk with them. According to the Bad Pitch Blog, participation is key.

When PRNewser interviewed social media innovator, Guy Kawasaki, at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) this week, Kawasaki made no apologies for still clinging to his PR firm.  (See the originial interview at http://bit.ly/KHvbQ)

“I may know a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I know every blogger. Take something like Mashable, they have ten reporters. I don’t know all ten of them. I don’t know which one is the most logical for me,” he said.

He pointed out that in addition to providing “arm and leg” support such as scheduling media briefings, PR pros should provide strategic-level thinking–which outlets to use, who to contact, clarifying the message, etc.  ”You wouldn’t just buy QuickBooks and then decide to do all your books, you would hire an accounting firm. And this is the same thing, you hire the pros who know how to do it.”

Kawasaki also said it’s important for PR firms to “just beat the crap out of you and get you prepared for the tough questions.” He doesn’t want his PR firm to be an “entourage of suck-ups.”  Kawasaki said it is PR’s moral obligation not to do this and to provide constructive feedback.