The Public Relations industry has not been the same since the advent of the internet. The first wave of change in the PR industry was the advent of corporate websites and the ability of the information on corporate websites to represent organisational opinion, a brand and make PR announcements. PR professionals had to adapt by adding and controlling content on the PR sections of corporate websites.
Online News
Managing PR content on corporate websites as a tactic was short-lived and not sufficient enough in the ever changing internet. With the sheer speed of information on the web through news sites, PR professionals had to figure out how to also grab attention from ‘authoritative’ old and new media news websites.
Online PR & SEO
The major seismal change for PR was the emergence of professional ‘online PR’ sites and Search Engine Optimisation. Online PR sites like PR Web & i-Newswire are the new ‘wire’ PR professionals send announcements through to in order to grab the attention of journalists, their industry and the web in general. PR professionals have had to figure out how to use these PR websites to their maximum capabilities. This is where the SEO/PR crossover has taken place.
As you know, Search Engine Optimisation is a collection of methodologies and processes aimed at improving the search engine rankings of websites. PR sites work well with the search engine optimisation process because they improve the link popularity of websites they promote. Because of this change, PR Professionals have had to either work with SEO professionals who undertake keyword research in order to discover popular, more commonly used keywords and help with link placements or have had to learn SEO themselves. I remember I used to provide our PR department with a set of keywords to use for press releases they sent through PR websites.
Blog
The next major wave to hit the PR industry was blogging. The advent of blogging empowered masses of people to have an opinion. The blog publishing industry tree has hundreds or perhaps thousands of branches of subjects and genres with loyal followers. Blogs have meant more specialisation on topics in the publishing industry. There are obvious quality issues in the blogosphere but there are also established authoritative blogs in every industry. PR professionals not only have to think about getting their brands out on Top notch blogs but also need to build somewhat authoritative blogs for their brands. Corporate blogs at the moment are the medium through which of PR departments can self-publicize the brands.
Like blogging was not enough, micro-blogging has arrived. With roughly about 2.5 million users, Twitter is the defacto micro-blogging platform at the moment and is an area PR professionals and brand managers need to adapt to. It’s brevity is its strength and its potential to reach thousands of people must not be overlooked. Twitter can take your brand to another level if your PR strategy is well thought through. Business owners might have to look for Social media professionals to work with the public relations and marketing team to get the most out twitter. Its probably not the last platform PR professionals would have to adapt to but its certainly the current platform garnering huge attention at the moment. Social media in general should be watched really closely.
I will be blogging about tips on marketing on twitter and social media in general.
For further reading read…
The importance of Online PR (slideshow)
