Online PR




One of the best business books is The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR by Al Ries.

In this book Ries explains how PR starts the fire - brands are built with PR. However the media landscape has changed so radically over the past few years, and people are finding information and news differently, so the practice of PR has had to adapt and change too.

It's all about online PR today.

Newspapers are losing readership in their print editions, but visitors to online news sites are up. Yahoo News has the biggest news audience in the world. CNN.com and MSNBC.com are close behind.

People go to social networking sites like Facebook and ask their friends for recommendations prior to purchase. and you can see the increase in the need for online PR in Google search trends - since 2007 the number of searches for online PR has skyrocketed.

If you want to reach your audience today you have to be online.

There are two sides to the story:

1. People are using social media sites and they are in active conversations with others about brands, product, ideas and causes
   
2. When they want info about a company they find the website the most authoritative source.

So make sure you have both aspects covered. Have a powerful social media presence and engage with your customers online. But remember to keep your website up to speed and offer Web 2.0 features. Add all your content to news feeds and make it easy for your site visitors to find you elsewhere online.