What’s the difference?

What’s the difference between old fashioned PR and online PR? Someone asked me that the other day, and I went into a rant. This is a fragmented recap. It’s far from exhaustive, but I still felt like sharing it.

Well – for starters, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing here.

When I talk about PR I talk about PUBLIC relations. If you think the P stands for ‘Press’ you’re screwed.

Sure, the press (as in so-called established media, print media, TV etc.) is one target audience for your stories, and sure, it’s nice to be mentioned in a newspaper or on TV (for something good). But face it. There are a gazillion other channels through which you can access your REAL target audience. The consumer!

Because consumers like to listen to other consumers, and they really like getting advice on what to consume from fellow consumers they trust.

So the good news is – there are tons more channels you can access than there used to be. And they make a difference.

The bad news is – if you act like a jerk or your product sucks, there are tons more people standing in line to let the world know

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t make your content accessible to the press. On the contrary! Get it all out there, and try to make use of the potential of the medium. One good example of how this is done is SHIFT communications’ Social Media Press Release and News Room concepts. I am yet to see the concept implemented to its full potential, but the idea is absolutely ace!

For some companies a good start would simply be to lift the password protection off of their press rooms, cause who are you really serving with that, huh?

OK – enough on the press for now. The consumers, then. How do you reach them?

Well, if you’re lucky your brand is just so DAMN sexy that people are watching your product releases online, ragingly pressing refresh to make sure they aren’t missing out on anything.

If you’re not quite that lucky – or sexy – you need to get involved. You need to open up all (or most) aspects of your communication and start telling it like it is. Let me know if a product launch is late. Or ask me what I want the most in the next batch of new products. Admit it when something has gone wrong, and tell me when I’m right and wrong in my criticism – and why.

Read your customers’ blogs, comment on them, listen to what people have to say and DO NOT be afraid to lose control (you never had it to begin with).

Consider making your presence known in online social networks. And consider HOW. At the very least pay attention to what goes on in them.

Share! Share knowledge, pictures, ideas, videos, sources and let people see what your company is all about. Who works there? Doing what?

It sound like common sense? Well it is! But it is also hard work, and it requires time and effort to get it right.

I’m hardly even scratching the surface of the subject here, but I’ll try and get specific in future posts.

In the meantime, I’ve started a Second Brain collection on the topic – not a lot in there yet, but I plan to build on it continuously. Let me know, if you have great links, pictures, videos etc that need to go in there.