Thursday, November 12, 2009
For those of us that started our careers in the early 90s, the world of PR has transformed beyond recognition. I’m sure that industry peers will be able to relate to those early mornings spent glued to the fax machine feeding through 15 page results announcements or being armed with a telephone and a pen as the sole tools for research.
The internet has transformed the PR industry both from an operational and strategic viewpoint, mostly for the good. I say mostly because while email has become an efficient mode of mass communication, it is not always an effective one. It has become the default setting for lazy communicators and cannot and will not ever supplant the effectiveness, enjoyment or immediacy of verbal communication. Added to all these shortcomings are the well documented dangers of email, such as forwarding a message to the wrong person, forgetting to ‘bcc’ or omitting attachments. Most of us are scarred by one horror email story which has thankfully prevented us from becoming serial offenders.
Email isn’t the only way in which the world of PR has been transformed by the advent of the internet. One of the biggest and best changes has been the proliferation of good quality, dynamic, digital media. Whereas before we were constrained to the print pages of newspapers and trade publications, we now have access to the vast opportunities presented by digital media.
This is a gift for the PRO who knows their topic, as the possibilities of generating content on behalf of clients for such outlets are now endless. No longer are we fighting to secure infrequent, lengthy article opportunities in quarterly magazines, but we now also have the opportunity of generating short, news-led comment pieces on respected blogs or websites. The real beauty here is that most digital media outlets are crying out for good content and therefore contributing to them is a further way of cementing good relations with the press.
The practice of generating regular, news-driven content also ensures that we are constantly thinking like journalists – spotting news hooks, themes or interesting angles on current stories. Moreover, generating regular content helps us all develop our creative writing skills. In the past, too much public relations writing has been restricted to drafting corporate press releases with strict templates and corporate phrases stuffed with superlatives or technical jargon . Thought pieces or blogs allow the writer to adopt a more informal, conversational style which doesn’t have to conform to an agreed format.
The internet has revolutionised the role of public relations executives – releasing us from the daily grudge of manual mass distribution, enabling us to access information on any topic at the press of a button, and most importantly is priming us to become The Content Generation.
Melissa Rowling
melissa.rowling@greentarget.net