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DIGITAL EVOLUTION: IT’S PR JIM, JUST AS
WE'VE ALWAYS KNOWN IT ...

The increasing dominance of the internet means that audiences today are more demanding, more impatient and more discerning, and this is piling the pressure on the PR industry to provide up-to-date, immediate, accurate and relevant content.

But to be blunt, so what? If there are any PR professionals out there not already doing this as a matter of course (and I have a sneaky suspicion there are), they should get out now before they damage PR’s reputation any further. Digital or not, whatever your chosen medium, providing to-the-minute, factually correct and interesting material is what PR is all about.

The problem with all this digital evolution / Web 2.0 / social media talk is that it has thrown the communications industry into a frenzy. There is no doubt that the media landscape is changing, but the ramifications upon PR are perhaps not as daunting as they may first appear. If anything it presents a great opportunity, opening up the global marketplace and putting target audiences closer to hand.

Web power

According to Ofcom’s recent survey of UK media trends, there are now more than 11m homes in the UK with broadband – an increase of 63% in 4 years. The emerging popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook is a significant contributor to the demand for a high-speed internet connection, and 70% of people aged 16-24 say they frequent sites like these. 1 in 5 also has his or her own website or blog.

Clearly, user-generated content such as blogs and podcasts is increasingly important to how news is reported and digested. Control has been taken from the old PR gatekeepers and passed to determinable bloggers who are able to grab hold of an issue and drive a very public debate. This also means that comment is not subject to the same PR scrutiny that traditional forms of media allow.

The news cycle is now much faster than it has ever been and is likely to accelerate as consumer, business and journalist reliance on the internet increases every day. Emailing out press releases to a selected list of media contacts will therefore no longer suffice. Activities such as posting releases onto online forums and maintaining media resource centres on corporate sites should be adopted as the norm if you want to get substantial coverage and maintain a media profile. Consider the rising power of the online poll – statistics about anything from house-buying trends to attitudes toward Gordon Brown have appeared in the press in recent months and have gained significant coverage for the companies behind them. The web is no longer seen as an electronic brochure, but a source for added value information that can help companies interact with customers and understand their needs.

Examine and engage

So ignore this new medium at your peril. There are currently 60m blogs– a figure that is rising by 20% month on month. Observation and engagement of the digital marketplace is vital as it has the influence to change a brand or organisation. PR professionals must be on top of this second generation of internet in order to react appropriately to minimise potential damage or proactively promote an initiative. When used effectively, the internet and its many children such as blog and podcast, can steer organisation awareness and recruitment –allowing companies to connect with audiences more directly.

But let’s not get carried away here. It would be a PR disaster to assume that most of these 60m blogs are mainstream. The majority of blogs are read by one person and one person alone, he or she doing the blogging. And only 4000 blogs are actually considered influential - that is they are defined as having more than 500 links to and from other websites.

Similarly, blogs and podcasts are not always appropriate to every organisation. Failing to understand the social media community and simply jumping on the bandwagon could lead to an almighty backlash. PR professionals posing as customers to blog for clients are already causing a stir and blogs that are not considered authentic will find the response from this extremely connected community swift and unforgiving.

Approach with care

Unquestionably the role of the internet must be incorporated into PR strategies and given a priority. The digital arena demands that PR revisit the profile of its target audiences to ensure the message is being delivered in a way that will be received and understood by the people to be reached.

But ultimately the rules of PR engagement are the same – knowing your objective, your target audience, and having something genuinely interesting to say is of the utmost importance. Without it, your message will simply disappear into cyberspace.

But ultimately, none of the above actually matters because I’m the only one reading this aren’t I?

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