Introduction to PR 2.0
Public relations professionals are news and information hoarders. We have to be up-to-date with our current events. When I taught PR classes as an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, one of the first things I would tell my undergraduate students was they should select one newspaper, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, and find the time every day to stay abreast of world issues. I also explained to them how extremely important it is to read the PR trade publications to stay current with news of the profession. PR Week and PRSA's Public Relations Tactics are excellent publications. In addition, PR people need to be well informed when it comes to public issues and news that is relevant to their clients and/or respective industries. It's critical for PR professionals to read, be knowledgeable, and stay extremely well versed about the markets their brands try to reach.
Newspapers and PR trade publications are excellent resources for information, but there are many more conversations taking place on the Internet about your brands and their competitors. You need to know about these conversations. Sometimes you need a good, hard kick in the pants that makes you wake up to the ultimate mind expansion—the desire to try new strategies to obtain valuable information, build relationships, and interact in ways that are unfamiliar. If you find it easy to become set in your process or methodology, read on because you're not alone and are probably in very good company. Maybe you've been doing PR for a couple years, 5 years, or 10 years, or perhaps you're approaching 20 years, which is where I am today. No matter what stage you're at, don't freeze up or feel uneasy and threatened when you hear about new ways people are networking and conversing online and ways you need to communicate to them.
These new methods include
- A great deal of social networking, such as blogging and interacting on Web sites, that enables you to meet "friends" and share content
- New ways to reach groups by employing social media tools in news releases
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology for targeted news and information
- Wiki, as in Wikipedia
- Any other intimidating 2.0 terms you're unfamiliar with
On the other hand, you might be very familiar with the new media terms, but just haven't embraced these resources enough to place them into action and have them incorporated into your daily PR regimen. You will discover that there's a time and a place to use PR 2.0, and after you've read this book, you'll let your new frame of reference tell you when it's time. You will also rely on your solid training as a PR professional and skills of the past to guide you to great success.
Are You Ready to Be 2.0 Ready?
I remember having this incredibly uncomfortable feeling during a meeting back in 2004. My Sr. Vice President of Client Relations, Dennis Madej, and I had driven all the way to Long Island for a pitch meeting with a small technology company that had developed a load balancing product. It was the first affordable system used for traffic management on e-commerce Web sites for small to medium size businesses. The CEO and Founder of the company said, "We need you to educate us on new media strategies." At the time, my company, PFS Marketwyse, had been working for a year or so with GLOBIX (Amex: GEX), a leading provider of Internet infrastructure and network services. We also worked for about six years with JVC Professional Products Company to publicize its proprietary technology in a complete line of broadcast and professional equipment, as well as other smaller technology firms, whether they were providers of mobile applications or CRM. We felt fairly confident we would be able to provide this technology company with PR and new media strategies.
Our immediate response to the CEO's inquiry was that PFS was very tapped into new media with the most current, Web-based media list generating tools and online distribution strategies. We had great contacts with technology publications and we utilized PR Newswire's ProfNet service, which brought our client experts together with technology editors who were looking for thought leaders to interview for their articles and feature stories. I mentioned we were familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that we'd done Webinars, and we would be able to help them with developing blogs. However, this wasn't enough. The CEO looked at us with the same question. He still wanted us to educate him on the new media strategies. Have you ever been in this type of situation? When you wished you knew more? We were in desperate need of PR 2.0.
Surprisingly, we won the account because the executives from this small tech firm saw our enthusiasm, knew we were hungry, felt our energy and aggressiveness, and believed our media contacts would propel them to a new level of publicity. They had been "burned in the past," as so many have, "by PR companies that promise the world and deliver very little." However, we won the account as a result of our attitudes and an impressive technology portfolio; so much so, that these executives were willing to take the chance on a small agency that wasn't entirely up to speed on new media strategies, but had a lot of potential. We were honest about our level of understanding when it came to new media strategies and at the same time, as a small PR division of a marketing company, realized we needed a crash course in PR 2.0. There was nothing holding us back except our own sense of complacency. A complacent attitude is dangerous when technology is constantly changing and advancing, and so is your client's competitive landscape. I knew, and so did my Sr. VP, that it was time to raise the bar. That's when it hit us; there was so much more to learn, and we had touched only the tip of the iceberg for our own company and our clients.
That's why this book is so important to all you PR professionals who have had a taste of new media and really want to dig into the latest PR strategies on the Internet. Is this an easy task for the average professional? I'm not so sure about that. It depends on your educational background, work experience, training; and I hate to say this—for some, your age. In my last book, The New PR Toolkit, Chapter 1 discussed the rate at which people accept technology. The group known as the Innovators are "Often young and mobile, the members of this group embrace technology early on and were right there at the birth of the commercial Internet, jumping on the bandwagon with creative ideas." It's no surprise that today the Innovators are the first to enjoy MySpace.com, Facebook.com, and the self-made videos YouTube.com offers. Where else can you see a man's face change every day over a seven-year period and watch a three-minute video on Christmas decorations (specifically a house that lights up rhythmically to music)? The New PR Toolkit maps out the other stages of accepting technology, including the Early Adopters who are less prone to taking risks, but certainly are helping to fuel the growth of new media strategies; the Early Majority—the large group that uses the Internet mostly for e-mail, research, and news; the Late Majority who are very suspect of what the Internet has to offer; and finally, the Laggards, who just as they sound, would rather not be bothered with technology. As a group, the Laggards are extremely concerned with privacy issues and are "lagging" behind. As professionals, we are all different. It's up to you to determine where you fall on the technology acceptance spectrum and what type of PR you feel you need to offer to the brands you work with.
As you read this book, there are some very different and unfamiliar examples of what brands are doing online and how PR 2.0 has been tremendously successful. There are other examples of brands that backfire with their 2.0 strategies and have a miserable failure on their hands and reputation issues to deal with. I would like you to keep one very important notion in mind during your cruise through the new PR 2.0 strategies: The responsibility of the PR professional is always to communicate with facts, accuracy, and integrity for the brand(s) you represent. If you can abide by this rule and expand your frame of reference to accept the momentous changes in technology and all the Internet has to offer in terms of social media strategies, then you will benefit from this book. Let's dig deeper into the concept of expanding your frame of reference.
The Big Bang
There's an excellent book that complements the theory of opening up your frame of reference to embrace PR 2.0. It's called Bang, and was written in 2003 by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. It's a fast read that discusses what it takes for an agency to create a Big Bang campaign. Just as it sounds, a Big Bang campaign is as great and colossal as the creation of the universe billions of years ago. Although Bang never touches on Web 2.0 or PR 2.0, it does provide some very good tips on how to open up your frame of reference so that you are not too bogged down with the marketing information you know about a brand. As a matter of fact, Chapter 2 in Thaler and Koval's book, Lose the Rules, impresses upon readers that you need to forget about your fears and you shouldn't over-analyze the information at hand, which all too often will impede the creative brainstorming process. Why is this theory important to you as you read PR 2.0? Mostly because as PR professionals (and I don't want to generalize) you have the incredible responsibility and sometimes daunting task to completely understand and over-analyze information to protect the reputations of the companies they represent. There's a very fine line here you don't want to cross. PR 2.0 shows you there's a way to protect and preserve the brand reputation so that you can communicate creatively with social media strategies, and at the same time use your knowledge and the power of the Internet to create new successes in your campaigns.
About This Book
So, now you're geared up to journey into PR 2.0. The first section of the book should be somewhat familiar territory, providing discussion on how PR professionals are moving forward and learning the best skills to work and thrive in the Web 2.0 World. Chapter 1, "PR 2.0 is Here," highlights several strategies in campaigns that worked in the PR 1.0 landscape, including viral marketing, online newsletters, and e-blasts news releases. The chapter's real-world stories should make you feel comfortable reviewing strategies with impact that have caught on quickly for brands wanting to create greater awareness online. Chapter 2, "Getting Started with 2.0 Research," is a thorough review of new research techniques, which is always dear to the PR professional's heart. You know through your past experiences that continuous research can be the anchor in a campaign and lends tremendous credibility to a brand when working with third-party research firms. And, you also know how much the media looks to PR professionals for solid statistics resulting from opinion polls they believe might be of interest or influence to their readers or viewers. When you're finished with an introduction to research, Chapter 3, "Research with Expert Resources," drives home how to work with the online research experts. Here, you learn how easy it is to move your research and campaign tracking efforts online or at least be able to find a good balance between traditional research strategies and what the Internet has to offer.
Chapter 4, "Reaching the Wired Media for Better Coverage," is your chance to hear what the media thinks about building relationships with them and the best way to communicate on a regular basis. It's always important to know how journalists want to receive information and PR 2.0 is no exception to the rule. This chapter talks about reaching the wired media for better coverage. I didn't run across many journalists who are enthusiastic if you try to pitch them through their blogs. E-mail and IM is a better way to proceed. There always will be those members of the media who prefer the accepted PR 1.0 methods. As stated in Bulldog Reporter's December 11, 2006 e-mail newsletter to PR pros, "In this day of bold new PR technology...pitching journalists is still all about people and personal relationships." Good old e-mail or sometimes an old-fashioned telephone call works really well. Chapter 5, "Better Monitoring for PR 2.0," is critical to achieving campaign success. Now you're not only monitoring your influencers, such as the media, but also citizen journalists who are blogging daily. Loss of control of communication is certainly a concern and on the minds of many professionals. Chapter 5 digs into the best services and how expert PR service providers use new monitoring strategies to help brands uncover important Internet conversations. If brands, under the guidance of their PR professionals, have the detailed means to monitor communication as it unfolds, there's a greater chance to get more brands involved in social networking and sharing content with audiences across the Web.
Section I, "The Transition to PR 2.0," is the briefing part of the book that bridges the gap between the PR of the past and the PR that's to come. Its purpose is to prepare you for the journey through uncharted waters. Section II, "A New Direction in PR," leads you in a new direction so that you understand in Chapter 6, "Interactive Newsrooms: How to Attract the Media," why it's so important to have your online newsroom interactive with many different resources and outside links for the media to pursue. Newsrooms today should be filled with video, podcasts, RSS feeds, downloadable images, presentations, and even sources beyond what your brand can offer on a topic of interest. Chapter 7, "The Social Media News Release: An Overdue Facelift," allows you to hear firsthand from professionals about the use of social media in news releases, when they think it's necessary to use these tactics, and what types of brands benefit the most. This chapter enables you to become more comfortable with the social media template. It was only in 2006 that Shift Communications unveiled its news release template, which has received a tremendous amount of attention and has prompted PR service providers to offer new media tools for the PR 2.0 releases.
As a follow-up to social media in news announcements, Chapter 8, "Social Networking: A Revolution Has Begun," discusses some the most popular social networking forums, including MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and how people are conversing in their communities. Chapter 9, "RSS Technology: A Really Simple Tool to Broaden Your Reach," details how PR professionals use Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology for wider distribution. RSS feeds serve two very important functions. The first is to provide you and the brands you work with customized news and information that occurs daily. You can use RSS as a means to monitor the market, the competitive landscape, or to stay abreast of current events. The other significant purpose of RSS is to enable your brands to feed targeted news announcements to people who want to receive customized information via their homepages or popular news Web sites. Chapter 10, "Video and Audio for Enhanced Web Communications," tours you through new and effective video methods as well as the use of audio files or podcasts downloaded to your customers' computer or handheld devices. Podcasts are the Webcasts of PR 1.0. Professionals are finding that podcasts are extremely popular for use with interviews and roundtable discussions. Also provided in this chapter is the discussion about the PR value of sharing video content on the Internet, which is growing in popularity. YouTube.com, purchased by Google for a sizeable sum, has garnered consumer and media attention. Growing immensely in popularity, it should capture your attention, too.
With the fundamentals of PR 2.0 embedded in your brain and a presentation of the strategies available, one question arises: Where do we go from here? This question is answered in Section III, "Embracing PR 2.0." Chapter 11 focuses on how to immerse yourself and your brand in social media. You are trained as a PR professional to listen to the market, to know what customers want, and to monitor how they behave. This is your chance to find out what 21st Century consumers are reacting to positively and how they have negative reactions when PR 2.0 strategies go awry. Chapters 12, "The Pro's Use of PR 2.0," and 13, "The Mindset of the PR 2.0 Journalist," although opinion driven, provides you with firsthand insights from PR professionals and media representatives interviewed from a variety of sources across the nation. Several technology innovators, such as Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, share their thoughts on social media.
These opinions and the information presented are the perfect segue into Chapter 14, "A PR 2.0 Plan," which is a closer look at how all the PR 2.0 strategies come together in a PR 2.0 plan that is representative of the true 21st Century company. Several companies discuss how they are moving forward with technology to reach desired groups. Like any PR plan, the PR 2.0 plan is stocked with the required plan elements, including a situation analysis, clearly set objectives, a well-planned strategic direction, implementation of the tactics, and of course, measurement, measurement, and more measurement.
As the book comes to a close, Section IV, "The Future of PR 2.0," is the wrap-up with conclusions that support the text's overarching main idea. PR 2.0 is the path to great PR and more engaging conversations through the use of social media applications that enhance the communication and extend the brand's reach in Web communities. Chapter 15, "The Path to Great PR," offers a discussion on the "Future of PR 2.0." PR 2.0 is here to stay, and the role of the PR professional is very different. As a matter of fact, the dialog turns to "What will it look like in the year's ahead?"
In The New PR Toolkit, I provided a glossary of "new" terms for PR professionals. It's amazing how these terms are now common everyday language. I would be very surprised if words such as "archive," "bandwidth," "firewall," "hits," "server," unique users," and "URL," were not used by you on a daily basis. If by chance you are not proficient in Web 1.0 terms, please feel free to peruse the book and its glossary to get up to speed. With that said, after reading PR 2.0 you will have a new PR vocabulary with terms that include "blogosphere," "micro blogging," "social networking," "RSS," "SEO," "social tagging," "wiki," and "vlogs." This technology jargon has to find its way into your everyday vocabulary in order for you to truly feel comfortable in a PR 2.0 world.
With insight from PR 2.0 experts such as Brian Solis, one of the Founding Fathers of PR 2.0, and Brian Cross, another PR 2.0 communications expert, Chapter 15 guides you on how to move forward in a PR 2.0 world, personally and professionally in your everyday PR regimen. The question, "How should I move forward as a PR 2.0 professional?" is answered in increments throughout each chapter of this book. PR 2.0 prepares you to take that susequent step toward what could be your next greatest PR campaign in a fast-paced, wired, social media-driven, and content-sharing PR 2.0 world. Good luck and enjoy the ride.