PR Lessons from Kanye West

The social networking website, Twitter was flooded with tweets about the Kanye West incident from Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards. There were over 5, 000 hits in the Twitter feed under Trending Topics: Kanye West. In our pr class we have talked about the effect of social media, and how it can explode to reach so many people in a short amount of time, and this is exactly what happened since this incident occurred. Kanye’s first apology after the incident was posted on his blog. This was the first of a total of four apologies, but the Jay Leno apology was the most public. The incident has been considered by some to be a PR stunt to help promote Jay Leno’s new prime time talk show on NBC. It is true that Kanye West’s appearance on the show helped Leno get a smashing start in television ratings, as the talk show pulled in over 15 million viewers. Even Obama had a say on the incident calling Kanye West a “jackass” in an off-the- record piece of a political interview on television. The remark was widely circulated by an ABC journalist who posted it on Twitter. This is not the first time Kanye West has been in the negative media spotlight, but the issue at hand is how we as pr professionals can learn from this pr incident. First, we must recognize the strong role and immediate effect that social media plays. Second, we must evaluate what is the best advice to be given as a pr counsel to Kanye West. As a pr professional you must try to understand how to handle a client who is in the public eye, and behaves in a negative manner. Does a public apology do the job or does more effort need to be done to counteract all the negative pr? There was plenty of negative pr being spread through micro blogging which included the following: Kanye being described as a racist, a troubled guy according to Bill O’Reilly, having a drinking habit that led to the specific incident, and most of all an outcry of disappointment and frustration from fans and other celebrities. We must address these questions and all the negative pr in the media in order to make a positive impact on the pr issue at hand. Whether or not Kanye West has learned from this incident, I can not say, but I can say that as a growing pr professional I am more aware of my immediate role and also the role that social media plays.