Online PR

Yesterday I was in a meeting with one of our agencies, AEG. They specialize in online PR, and they focus on helping us keep our finger on the pulse of what's happening on the web. Leslie Arbuthnot and newly blogging Steve Cherrier were there, and they gave us a lot of great information about how the world of PR is changing. There's lots I could write about (I'll leave that to Steve, I think!), but I enjoyed the conversation, and couldn't help jumping in when a good bit of the conversation centered around blogging.

I really enjoyed visiting Steve's new blog, Relate. Here's how he describes it:

While I decided that the subject matter should relate to things I do as part of my work (I'm a PR professional who specializes in building buzz, community and online PR for games), I also wanted to focus on aspects of the gaming industry that interest me. My fiance and I talked about how it seems that everything we do in PR really revolves around relationships. Relationships with publishers and developers; and especially relationships with webmasters, bloggers and the general community. So we came up with the catchy name of relate for the blog.

A lot of the folks that stumble across my blog are PR professionals. And it's easy to understand why they get how the Internet is changing the face of marketing. It's not just about fan sites and newsgroups, and it's certainly not that there are lots of teenagers writing on LiveJournal. And it's not really even about "participatory journalism," and the fact that press releases are sent via email instead of via fax (or teletype!).

Here's what it is about: People have changed the way they find information, and they've fundamentally changed the way they communicate.

- I haven't bought a major purchase without spending time on the web in a long, long time.
- I haven't bought a book or CD or game without checking out what people like me are saying on Amazon.com.
- I realized today that I haven't picked up a newspaper (except the occasional USA Today while traveling) for several years.
- Even though I subscribe to HBR and Fast Company, I read most of the articles online before even getting the magazine in the mail.
- I haven't seen a commercial on TV for months, because I can skip them on my PVR.
- I listen to NPR or CDs I burn from Audible, so I don't hear many radio ads.

So to whom do I turn to for advice on things I don't know much about? My friends and co-workers (often via email). Blogs like Gizmodo. And online shops like BestBuy.com or Amazon.com.

If you're doing PR that's supposed to reach me, you better be doing it online.

Comments

[Wayne]

I recognize myself in some of the descriptions of how you gain your information for making purchasing decisions. But, are you suggesting that you are a typical worldwide consumer who now relies on Internet and NPR sources? Or maybe part of a newish, experimental branch of PR?

I don't think my mother-in-law even knows what amazon.com or NPR are, and she's still an active consumer. Her approach to buying also reflects some aspects of my purchasing patterns.

Anyway, thanks for your blog.

[Christopher Coulter]

The internet, changing the face of Marketing? Oh oh. Stuck in a time warp? That is 1999 talk. It’s just being enhanced, internet but a tool. And online is but one focus, one demographic. A diverisifed strategy works best. Placing all chips on the geek-blogger-“never move away from desktop” set is a very risky bet, mark that one down as over-hyped boom-era thought processes. Pew Research reports show massive variances, saying many Americans have no interest in things online, far from being Luddites, seems it is a choice. Granted you are a slice of the market, but a slice is not the whole.

And being an active gamer, I have to disagree with the total online focus, magazines like Xbox Nation, and Game Informer and television shows like Pulse and XPlay bring far more to my table, than many websites. And word of mouth is huge in this segment too, drop into any Gamestop, people are yabbering and chatting; not all of it happens online.

Lots of people still read newspapers, lots of people still like to browse bookstores, lots of people comsume electronic media (television/radio/music) passively, lots of people read magazines in print and don't bother with online, and TONS of people listen still to the radio (look at Sterns and Limbaughs ratings figures), lots of people do not exist in “email culture”, and Press Releases set via fax get READ usually, in the era of Spam, email InBox is chancey.

“The online population is fluid and shifting. While 42% of Americans say they don’t use the Internet, many of them either have been Internet users at one time or have a once-removed relationship with the Internet through family or household members.” - http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Shifting_Net_Pop_Report.pdf

[Christopher Coulter]

“This is a characteristic of the giddy kind of people who define themselves through computer-mediated relationships. They get terribly excited about people just like themselves using the same software, when all that bounces back from these dead phosphorous LCD screens is something that approximates their own reflection, and isolation. Bits and bytes are useful - but they're not where real power is exercised.” - Andrew Orlowski