Online & Social Media:  How Web 2.0 savvy is your PR and marketing communications?

Published 2008

To date, advertising and promotion on the web has been relativity easy for Australian marketers to get their heads around. However, using social media as a marketing tool, whilst touted by many agencies, has been seen as ‘too hard’ and the role of public relations online therefore not fully understood. 

But given predictions that an online tsunami is just over the horizon, there are potentially rich rewards for those organisations for whom the Internet and online audiences are important. For those who can ‘get their act together’ there is the opportunity for rich pickings.

It begs the question as to how well Australian corporates and marketers, and their communications units, are ‘walking the talk’ about online and social media.

Here we pose some basic questions from a public relations perspective, which should be read in conjunction with previous articles PR Influences has published.

1. Are you considering online as another channel through which to disseminate your announcements?

This is more than distributing releases to online editions of print publications - that’s been (or should have been) part of normal media distribution for some years now.  But it’s now old hat!

Using online in its fullest sense involves releasing your news so it bypasses traditional media and ends up on Google, Yahoo and other search sites - both as news and on the web so it can be found through search. 

This involves using search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to make your material more appealing to the search engines- and it also involves including a range of interactive elements such as hyperlinks in releases.

It doesn’t apply to every product category, and it’s less applicable in Australia than in the US, but very few companies (or their PR agencies) even consider it.

2.  Are you, or your PR agency, monitoring the online media for mentions of you, your company, your brand and products?

Most companies monitor the traditional media and receive physical copies of media clippings. 

But are you monitoring the online media where discussion, comment and criticism can erupt in forums and blogs, and can expand into a veritable bushfire in a short period of time?

Again, it depends which sector you are in, but if your organisation believes it is important to vet a daily or weekly pile of press clippings then it’s hard to justify ignoring the fastest growing area for comment - online.

Unfortunately few organisations (or their PR agencies) seem to understand this can even be done - and even fewer have the tools to do it.  But any communications unit that isn’t capable of providing this service can’t really claim it is doing its job.

3. Do you recognise the power of PR in today’s social media environment?

Are you equipped to engage in the online conversation? 

Old-style traditional PR is about establishing relationship with media, preparing press releases, releasing them to media and relying on them to convey the message to the end audience. The implied third-party endorsement of the media is powerful and this will continue to be the core foundation of PR.

However, new-style online PR is about bypassing media and communicating directly with the online influencers (the equivalent of the media) or the end-user live and in real-time. This involves new techniques, requires a completely different mind-set and challenges established corporate culture which sees announcements as ‘set in stone’ and subject to tortuous approval processes and with limited ability for a spokesperson to elaborate.

For agile companies in ‘hot’ market segments, direct participation with influential bloggers whose mindset (and ethos) is very different to professional media and/or direct communication with consumers who are very tech-literate, can have a huge impact.  However, this is new territory and just as executives need media training to know how to engage with traditional media, the rules of online engagement need to be understood before embarking into this new environment.

This use of PR within social media in Australia is very new and those that understand and use it first will have a jump over their competitors.  The trouble is that it’s so new that very few PR agencies have the direct experience and expertise to advise organizations on how to gain that elusive competitive advantage.