Ten Reasons For Adopting Online PR
Posted by Peter Brady on February 23 2009,
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When I mentioned that I thought this was the right time to work in PR to an unemployed PR account manager a few weeks ago, his immediate reaction was to say: “Are you insane? PR budgets are being cut, marketing budgets are being cut, advertising budgets are being cut – now take a cold shower and think about what you’re saying!”
I’ll skip the cold shower and admit he had a point. However he did have a number of fundamental flaws in his thinking that I believe are endemic within PR companies, advertising agencies and media companies. It’s these flaws in understanding which concern me, and which are particularly relevant to what’s happening in the online world.
There are 10 key points to contemplate when talking about this brave new world:
1. Acceleration in Online PR growth: Whilst it’s true to say that PR budgets are being cut, we are also seeing a significant shift into online PR. Why? Cost effectiveness, ability to hit specific niche demographics, vast quantities of accurate campaign metrics data or analytics and long term exposure benefits (stretching into years) beyond the initial phase of the campaign are all proving compelling reasons. We are predicting that the current financial squeeze will see a dramatic acceleration in this trend over coming years.
2. ROI measurement: ROI in offline PR is a fairly homogenous concept. Not so in the online arena. It really depends on the client’s objectives. Concepts to consider are cost comparison to equivalent PPC (pay per click) campaign; cost comparison to equivalent banner ad campaign; exposure to unique users; exposure to page impressions; dwell time of users on content; growth in the use of campaign keywords within search engines; growth in the number of inbound links to home site, exposure to RSS feeds; eZines and eNewsletters.
3. Targeting of appropriate online media: Online PR seeding of the correct blogs, sites, portals, forums, social networks is crucial. Whilst you cannot control viral distribution, targeting the right web real estate sets the tone for leading online opinion and conversation. Some site checks that should be made include: global distribution of traffic, demographic make up of site users, history of the site in terms of reputation, identification of key topic focus, levels of traffic, general indicators like Google page rank, Alexa rank, inbound link distribution etc.
