Eee PR

New media, especially the emergence of web 2.0, presents a significant impact for the Public Relations industry as it has challenged how public relations is practiced. PR is no longer only about sending out press releases to media and hoping to get the news appear on the media by building good relationship with the journalists. By the emergence of web 2.0, PR is now about communicating directly with the public without relying solely on the traditional media.

So what actually is web 2.0? To make it clear, I looked it up in Wikipedia and it says:

“The term Web 2.0 is described as the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.”

Web 2.0 is about the interconnection and interaction between the web and the users. It allows users to do more than just get information from the web. Users can now participate and “interact” with the web. That’s why Web 2.0 could help PR to communicate directly with the public. I really think that It is a new, helpful channel for PR to disseminate information to the public and then somehow get feedback from them. Social media, one of the platforms based on Web 2.0, is used largely in the PR industry.

According to Universal McCann company, in one of its research - the Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (conducted in March 08), it defines social media as the online applications, platforms, media which aim to facilitate interaction, collaboration, and the sharing of content. The research shows that there is a significant growth of social media usage which includes social networking, blogs, RSS, widgets, podcasts, photo and video sharing, message boards and chat rooms from year to year.

Click for Larger Image

More and more people are getting online and using social media. I think that it is important for PR to take a look and understand this growing trends of social media usage so we can then take advantage of it in conducting PR practices. It is both fun and challenging to make use of Web 2.0 as PR now has new channel to communicate with the public BUT no longer can control the spread of the public’s opinion because they can now express their opinion freely online, anytime and anywhere.

So how effective is new media used in the PR industry? Even better question: Should PR concentrate only in new media or use both new and traditional media? Well, keep following my blog and you’ll find out more..