“The smaller the company, the more frequently social media is used to improve external communication”
- Josh Gordon (2011)
For any organizations, one of the greatest inventions is obviously the Internet. Its continually increasing popularity opens up countless opportunities for improving the ability to practice one profession. The Internet facilitates nearly every imaginable form of communication that a PR practitioner could invade on. However, putting aside all the great things about the invention of the Internet, it is also welcoming a world without traditional gatekeeper as an opportunity to take our message directly to the public.
Nothing is easy in this world. We are being challenged every single day either we realizes it or not. With the advancement of technology that is at present now, it made the world more fragile than it was before. In line with what stated with PR Newswire (2011), public relations practitioners must commit to lifelong learning, since the state-of-the-art for public relations in new media is likely to continue evolving rapidly for years to come. The Internet has however taken into its place in accommodating every each of our lives.i. Corporate and personal brandjacking
According to Owyang (2008), it has becoming more and more common that a brand or an individual can easily be brandjacked as others take their user name, domains, and assert themselves as someone else. Given there are hundreds if not thousands of websites to monitor one’s brand, squatting these names will increasingly become difficult over time. Every 60 seconds, 13 hours of content are uploaded to Youtube, and millions of tweets are generated every day. With so much content being created, how will one filter out what is accurate anymore?
ii. Measurement and Return-On-Investment (ROI)
Internet is the new present hip that can be penetrated by anyone in the world. According to Owyang (2008), it is a movement where anyone can participate which resulted in low or no revenues for most participants. For example, there are millions of blogger, and only a few of them can claim serious revenue and even smaller subsets have built media empires.
iii. Time
Besides its relationship with the public, PR practitioners also need to improve their time in responding towards the media or reporters who would call for information or giving comments. In the current situation now, a deadline is whenever a reporter feels he has enough information to go with the story, and that creates a danger to the PR practitioners.
Besides the all the challenges that PR practitioner needed to go through, it also give some beneficial implementation towards them. Internet has been a compact provider as it is filled with information. Everything is just at your fingertips, where you click and the answer pops out. Without realizing it, Internet has got the attention of every single person in this world. Everyone wants to penetrate into Internet as it is can be categorized as a powerful source towards the modernization that we are facing right now.
i. Using the Internet for Research
It is undoubtedly that every each of organization today has its own websites where it provides valuable information for the public to obtain. Besides using the Internet for research, it also can be useful for PR practitioners to obtain news coverage. News has been transformed into Internet in order to make it easier for practitioners or public at large to retrieve any updates in the world as local news can be generated globally for everyone to retrieve.
As stated before, the Internet is conversed into a two-way communication style. It is where Internet gives opportunity for public to voice out. It acts as a grassroots opinion where people chatter in newsgroups and electronic newsletter. It is making it easy for PR person to detect any comments over the 100 million voices being spoken.
ii. Using the Internet to Speak Your Piece
From the Web, one can create a website for the importance of your clients, or your practice. A website should be an interactive component; therefore, it is not advisable for PR person to only post the corporate brochure. It also permits one-on-one communication, so don’t just broadcast but instead narrowcast and if it is possible, one should create an online community in order for public to ask questions or so. Having a broadcasted newsgroup is also very beneficial towards the PR practitioners. You can visit, listen and speak towards any comments. One must bear in mind to apply good public relations principles where do not falsified the content or spread information that can confuse the public. It is also good for one to dialogue with truth-seekers who have an open mind on certain subject matters.
In conclusion, the presence of Internet has affected millions of people around the world. It has becoming a necessity for every organization and of course a PR practitioner needs to be more aware and conscious on the whereabouts of their companies.
References
Armano, David (2009). Five Challenges Social Media Will Bring to Business. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/08/a_recent_ survey_conducted_by.html. Accessed on 23 April 2012.
James, L. Horton (2009). PR and Social Media. Retrieved from http://www.online-pr.com/Holding/PR_and_Social_media.pdf. Accessed on 24 April 2012.
Owyang, J. (2008). The Many Challenges of the Social Media Industry. Web Strategy. Retrieved from http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/08/07/the-many-challenges-of-the-social-media-industry/. Accessed on 24 April 2012.
PR Newswire (2011). White Paper Mastering Public Relations in Social Media: Engage Opportunity Everywhere. PR Newswire Association LLC.
No comments:
Post a Comment