Social media and PR

The Internet has prompted titanic shifts in the way PR and media relations are going to be done now and in the future. Technology, economics and changing public sensibilities have changed the PR game forever…

Basic PR assumptions:

1. PR influences mass media to put ideas, products and brands into the public consciousness and conversation
2. PR works through editorial decision-makers who set the national or global news agenda
3. PR targets large audiences to accelerate and optimize brand impact and buzz
4. The value of the implied third-party endorsement combined with the speed and reach of influence-able media makes PR worth the effort

Now consider the current media and editorial landscape:

• Mass media audiences have significantly declined and fragmented. Niche media rules.
• Famous vehicles like daily newspapers, radio and the TV news have much smaller audiences and cannot keep up with the news cycle.
• Almost anyone with a blog, a camera phone or a video recorder can gather, edit and transmit news, potentially influencing public debate or potentially initiating a viral sensation. John Q. Public can still claim his 15 minutes in the spotlight.
• Reaction to and analysis of events takes place in real time and is influenced by a growing number of voices and sectors empowered by widely and cheaply accessible technology

“The basics of news gathering are changing, Online PR tactics are becoming more important to access to and attention from the media. It also requires you to think of PR much more like advertising where the message can be directly transmitted to customers and prospects without an editorial filter. Here’s how and why.”

Everyone Searches. Google is the universal go-to-resource. Those same reporters who won’t take your call, use Google and other search engines for ideas, sources, data and colour commentary.
If your press materials aren’t online and aren’t searchable you have no chance of either influencing the media or of going direct with your message to people interested in your brand, your category or your subject matter.

This mandates understanding and using different tools. You have to consider the means of distribution; e-mail directly to press lists and online distribution to insure searchability and to capitalize on those sites that import PR feeds as content. You also must build SEO tactics into the language and construction of press releases.

Video is Vital.
YouTube is the second most searched site on the web.
Video is expected.
Video gives you the option to more carefully control the explicit and the implied message and has the potential for significant consumer or media pass-along.

Everything is a Conversation. One-way media is dead. Everyone talks back to, edits, reviews, and comments, adds to, shapes and criticizes everything.

In a world where everybody finds out what is happening at lightening speed on a growing range of devices, the game is about interpreting and analyzing the experience rather than presenting new information.

“So PR pros need to monitor mentions and reputations, transmit and receive RSS feeds and keep track of advocates, enemies and the forums they participate in. They also need to understand how to use
Twitter,
Facebook
Delicious / dig
and other social media to follow and to influence the on-going conversation, which is often monitored, catalyzed and promoted by leading websites and TV or cable networks. Social Media Drive Online PR Tactics”