A moment of silence for traditional PR. Seattle entrepreneur and angel investor Andy Sack declares that “PR is dead.” As Sack explains on his blog, “I declared PR (public relations) dead. It’s the past. It’s all about social media now. And social media is a more complex, more fragmented game to play. PR agencies of the past will have a hard time adapting–in my opinion.” Of course, not everyone has been as quick to roll out the hearse. Some of Sack’s readers offered up a spirited defense of traditional PR. In fact, one commenter went so far as to claim that social media is dead.

Social media certainly is not dead, but neither is PR. It’s just evolving. Traditional PR just doesn’t work well in the social media environment, and the more people become involved in social media, the less traditional PR will work.

By the way, Microsoft founder Bill Gates is on Twitter now, @BillGates.

Dirt is Good: Unilever Marketing Campaign

Knowledge@Wharton takes a look at the future of advertising in the age of social media:

It hasn’t caught on yet in the U.S., but a global ad campaign for Unilever’s army of laundry detergents — sold in Asia as Omo, in France as Skip, and by other names around the planet — hailing that “Dirt is Good,” is considered by experts to be a perfect example of a new path for marketing in the 21^st century.

The marketing push merges memorable images of children splashing in mud with a customer-engaging social message — “every child has a right to play and explore.” Some claim the ad helped push Singapore to increase recess time at its academics-heavy, stress-inducing schools.

The early success of Unilever’s advertising strategy is exactly the type of information that company marketing executives and ad agencies need to discuss as they struggle to develop new ideas to handle the cataclysmic changes in technology and communications — from Tivo to Twitter — that have altered the ways companies interact with customers.

Interesting comment in the story from from Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, on the subject of what change the Internet brings to the relationship between brands and consumers: “The Internet is becoming more ubiquitous, more social and also more immediate, and that is upsetting all sorts of business models.”

Social media gives job-searchers “more outlets to communicate your personal brand and find a job faster than the competition,” he adds.

The same dynamic holds true for entrepreneurs, by the way, especially if what your business is built more on expertise and information more than on selling a physical commodity product.