What is Online PR?

Learn what's behind online PR, why you need to do it, and what's involved.

Publicity as You Know it Made Anew

As a publicist who has been around for twenty-odd years, I remember when I used to have to educate potential clients about what publicity was and about its value and benefits.  People thought I did advertising.  But, publicity is getting the message out in the media by asking media members to talk about you.  It's a third-party endorsement, really.  Still, after explaining, they were nervous about doing something with no guarantee and with benefits that were at best, an esoteric intangible.

These days, many people know that to build their profile, they need to get a publicist to get air-time and ink.  But, back then, I had to prove my worth with advertising value.  I calculated the air-time or column-inches and came up with a dollar value based on the media house's open rates.  The biggest sticker shock was the knowledge that the third-party endorsement is priceless and can't be bought.

Change

The one thing that is eternal is change; the media has now evolved.  The media bastions are now online and making themselves anew with what they do best.  Online, you can read the paper, listen to the radio, and watch TV.  So, when you get a traditional publicity piece in the media, you're online too.  The difference online, is that people can interact with that story and make their voices heard.  They are the new members of the media:  any person on this planet who can type, talk, or load video online.

Repeat

But, as the cliché goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same; those of you who are or will be in the public eye, have internet PR to master.  We want the media, including the online people, to talk about you and be influenced by you.  With PR, we want them to tell someone else.

Word-of-Mouth PR

Years ago, word-of-mouth PR was the buzz.  Now with the internet, it's called social marketing, search engines, websites, social bookmarking, blogs, and more.  It's word-of-mouth gone wild.  Is some of it diarrhea of the mouth?  Sure, but if any of those people are in your target audience, we had better listen.

Reputation

Since the dawn of time what one person says about another (accurately or not) based on that person's actions forms his or her reputation.  The world used to be small, so everyone knew the actions of others.  It has gotten small again.

Your actions and your words tell about you like they always have, whether in the newspaper, or discussed by a journalist's web page, or on nobody from nowhere's blog.  The world is talking.  You've got something to say, so I'll insert you into the conversation with the people who matter.

1 Million

It's still publicity--getting people talking with that all-important third-party endorsement; it just has extra mediums in this new media age.  These days, I measure the esoteric intangible by measuring page views or average traffic to an online page that talks about you.  Sometimes, I measure with reports of inbound links from other places on the internet.  It's not possible (yet) to quantify it all, but the numbers do add up.

My goal with traditional publicity is to get publicity double or more an ad budget.  In this new media, my goal is 1 million page views, give or take, well, depending on how much you want yourself or your product out there.

Intentional Serendipity

There is a reason they call it "the web" because it is so interactive and interconnected.  The traditional media may post a story online and the audience will talk about it or circulate it.  The opposite also happens.  Maybe the reporter heard about you on a blog or a social networking site, then searched for and found your website, found my number in your website's press room, then, voila, I am setting up an interview.  Then what do I do?  I promote the interview online!  And so on it goes.

I still do traditional publicity, but we don't need to live and die by it alone anymore.  The media has exploded with so many media houses and individuals online exclusively.

We still have to plan, time things for maximum impact, and reach your target audience the same as ever.  It's just that now, we have the exploding media that is the internet to make a bigger bang for the PR buck.  But, that's if you want me to do it.  I'll write up the audit and my recommendations for you, whether you have me do it, you do it, or your neighbor's teenager do it.