Public Relations

Trends in Public Relations

Until recently most public relations activity involved person-to-person contact between PR professionals and members of the media, such as journalists and television news reporters.  However, several trends are developing that alter the tasks performed by PR people.  In most cases these changes are the result of new Internet technologies that are quickly gaining widespread acceptance among Internet users and are becoming new media outlets in their own right. 

The important trends in public relations include:

Voicing Opinion

Developing websites has long been a time-consuming and often overly technical undertaking for the vast majority of marketers.  But this changed with the evolution of easier to use site development applications which allow for quick creation and convenient updating of site content.  Additionally, the move toward easier to use website software has changed the purpose of having a presence on the Internet.  Where previously the main objective of a website was for advertising, delivering information and e-commerce, the web now serves as a platform for people to voice their opinions.  

There are two key applications that fall into this category – blogs and forums.

Blogs

Blogs, short for weblogs, are a phenomenon that shows just how powerful and influential the Internet has become as a communication medium.  Millions of blogs are now available and specialized search engines have been developed to search millions of postings.

Blogs may be most famous as a tool for political discussion, but they are also becoming an important communication tool for public relations.  Many companies in both technical fields, such as eBay, Google, and Microsoft, and non-technical fields, such as General Motors, McDonalds and Well Fargo Bank, now produce in-house blogs that report on happenings at the company.  These blogs allow company employees, including CEOs and marketers, to post messages updating company developments and, thus, serve as useful PR tool.

Forums

Web forums are the child of the old Internet bulletin board services where people can post their opinion often anonymously.  Forums pose both opportunities and threats for those involved in PR.  A presence in an influential forum helps build credibility for an organization as forum members recognize a company’s effort to reach out to the public.  On the other hand, forums can cause major problems as a breeding ground for rumor and accusation.  Public relations personnel must continually monitor forums and respond to misguided comments posted on a web discussion board to help squelch rumors before they can catch fire.