Discussion of Online-PR continues unabatted with the ever reliable e-consultancy releasing their report on the status quo.
A few of the key points:
- There might be widespread use of Online PR for defensive purposes, such as reputation monitoring, but there is still little proactive use for marketing due to lack of experts and PR agency knowledge in the area.
- Companies need an integrated offline and online approach with activites supported and reflected in both.
- Uniting online and offline PR is a recent development -“SEO internally is quite easy but persuading the PR team to take online PR seriously is difficult because they don’t understand the value it can bring to the business.â€
- “Traditional PR is about cuttings and circulation. Online is about influence and conversation. What is putting a lot of traditional PRs off is that it’s seen as being about technology. But it’s about relationships and conversations.â€
- There are SEO agencies offering Online PR services, but these agencies may not have the online copywriting skills needed to carry out important aspects of online PR effectively.
- Bloggers can be particularly powerful in niche areas.
- “It’s about remembering why people form communities in the first place. It’s got to be relevant otherwise there is no point in being there.â€
So far, my attempts to develop Online-PR in Milton Keynes hasn’t met the groundswell of support I had been hoping for. The perception of blogs as a marketing tool is still taking time.
In my experience, whenever you are trying to push something new people need to hear about it from a number of sources before they start to take it in. Now that e-consultancy are on the case they should be hearing a lot more about Online-PR from a lot more people very soon.
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Keep up the good work – I believe blogging will come to dominate business marketing.
People will consult the web when wanting to know about (and then buy) ‘anything’, and as you indicate, reputation will be key.
Then compare two websites, how much more likely are people to contact the company that blogs – or is actively managing their reputation.
We still feel like it’s miles away – and it’s amazing to me how many people haven’t heard of a reader. Although, now that a cut down version is built into microsoft explorer, people might click the orange button by mistake and perhaps we’ll be up and running in the business world.
Matt
PS. A writer of copy would probably have spelt his name right.
Matt
Hi Matt,
I think its only a matter of time. Just how much time I don’t know.
I think the theory behind business blogging is sound. It just needs mindsets to change and stop thinking of internet marketing as SEO.
The early birds have an excellent opportunity to corner their market as a knowledge leader and catch all the worms.
Matt.