Shel Holtz pointed out a great advantage that savvy Young PR pros have in the Network Society.Intuitive Engagement he calls it. It comes about as a result of our familiarity with many-to-many communication. Young PR Pros haven’t been trained in a top-down, one-way communication model - so we just don’t think that way.
His blog post shows why it’s a good idea for all Young PR pros to get active online. The greater your familiarity with blogging, social media (yep, even wasting time on myspace can be useful), and common interest communities; the greater your intuitive engagement should be.
Familiarity with two-way communication is not solely fostered online, but the Web is probably the most common place we pick up these skills.
It’s certainly food for thought, so get online and get amongst it.
(Originally posted at Young PR.)
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Posted in New Tools, New Media March 13th, 2006 by Paull Young | No comments
Dissemination and communication: are they the same?
Heck no! Webster’s defines the two this way:
Dissemination - to spread throughout
Communication - an act or instance of transmitting
Does the difference seem obvious? Hmm. Maybe not. But as PR practitioners, it’s important to see and embrace the difference between disseminating information and actually communicating that information. Just because the information is put out there, it doesn’t mean it’s being understood by the public. For PR, the difference between these two is simple:
Dissemination - getting the info out there
Communication - connecting and having an impact
We should measure the effectiveness of our PR efforts by the impact we’ve made through communication, not by how much information we’ve put out. And to have an impact, we need to know our public. Cue the Technorati-Edelman blogger study.
A survey was sent to thousands of bloggers and ended up with results from 821 respondents. The 18 questions ranged from why bloggers blog, to how PR people contact them, to who they most trust as a source of information about products. The numbers and statistics in the charts provided are interesting, but I got a lot more out of the free form answers and from reading Richard Edelman’s post on his own blog about the survey results. I always want to know WHY. For example, when looking for product information, WHY do almost 63% of bloggers most trust other bloggers while only about 5% trust company press releases? Well, it’s because the blogosphere has it’s own culture, and if PR practitioners want to be trusted and taken seriously by bloggers, we need to start by embracing their culture and speaking their language. We need to focus on communicating, and not just disseminating.
Blogs are a valuable and influential medium, which is all the more reason for PR practitioners to develop functional, positive relationships with them. For too long, PR has tried to fit blogs into the same role as other media. I think it’s about time that we have this research to better equip us to build those mutually beneficial relationships — and therein communicate more effectively — with bloggers.
(This was originally posted at Erin Caldwell’s PRblog.)
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Posted in Public Relations, New Tools, New Media March 13th, 2006 by Erin Caldwell | No comments
I recently learned something that other beginning bloggers may find useful.
I had been blogging for almost two months before I knew what RSS or XHTML was. I had heard the terms, but I had no idea what they meant until I saw a webcast by Josh Hallett. The webcast has been very helpful for me, and I would suggest watching it.
RSS and XHTML in layman terms, are ways of viewing a website. To be able to view a site in RSS or XHML you must have a reader. There are many RSS readers out there, but I use newsgator, which is completely free.
Newgator allows you to subscribe to websites. When you subscribe to these websites you will never have to go to the actual site again. You will only have to go to newsgator.com. This is much more convenient and efficient than having to go to a million sites a day.
Your newsgator account will only list the website if it has a new post for that day. Therefore, you don’t waste your time going to the website and finding nothing new. Newsgator handles that for you. When there is something new you just click on the article and it loads right there in newsgator. So you read the article or blog without typing in the address. It is so convenient.
It is easy to subscribe to the sites. All you have to do is enter the web address into newsgator and then it is added to your feeds (folders).
It is ridiculous how convenient RSS readers make blogging. I used to waste hours on end trying to read blogs seeing what was new. Now I don’t waste a second of my time finding new posts. They are all right there for me at newsgator.com. If you have not been using a RSS reader I would suggest starting. It will make your life so much easier.
(This was originally posted at Wes’ Blog.)
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Posted in Technology, New Tools, New Media March 13th, 2006 by Wes Gossett | 2 comments
