Twitter, Facebook Et Al – the Evolution of PR
One of the most dramatic changes in how commercial enterprises function these days is in PR – or public relations. Whereas before a firm would rely on printed media like magazines, newspapers, and industry journals, today we have the internet. This has hugely influenced how firms conduct public relations. With the advent of blogging, all of a sudden we’re receiving friendly updates direct from CEOs instead of the more accustomed polite, formal column ordinarily found in their corporate brochure. Not only that, but we’re getting more updates from firms too, with their website being constantly updated. With the recent introduction of sites like Twitter, corporations are also microblogging too.
Not only that, but the web has made things much less passive and far more engaged. Now those browsing the internet effectively vote for your advertizement by clicking it, or sign up to your mailing list, or ask questions directly to you using your online contact forms. We also know a lot more in terms of target markets because of their “footprint” they make with such activity. Therefore it’s crucial that an organization can respond to the responses provided by their website visitors and form their marketing messages based on these responses.
With such dramatic changes, does that mean firms have much more power to determine how the general public perceives them? Yes it does! Corporations are now setting aside increasingly more time on public relations, since so many new opportunities have become available with new technologies. With that increased opportunity however, there is the increased chance to make slips too, and so our advice is to employ a PR company first. Learn from them. How do they approach all the new media that is now available? They have experience in understanding what is successful, and what isn’t successful. They can rapidly highlight your weaknesses and improve your strong points in terms of your relationship with the public. A good location to get started with in terms of locating a public relations company is Google. Just enter a key phrase like public relations agency and you will quickly get a number of PR organizations ready and willing to help you.
