Press release rebirth
Check out http://www.pr-squared.com to learn about a new press release format that has just been launched. It’s totally amazing for its simplicity and its potential. I think that South African PR professionals would need to be use this kind of release in tandem with our traditional 400 word, inverted pyramid ones while we migrate towards the level of Web literacy prevalent in the US.
What this new format shows is that the power in the conversation between companies and their audiences is moving solidly in the direction of the consumer. It is no longer enough for companies to know what they want to tell their ‘chosen’ audience. It is necessary to know what the audience wants to hear from the company – and that means everyone – not just the top 100 listed companies in South Africa or whichever other sufficiently lucrative sector of the market the business has chosen to communicate with.
In the new media or PR 2.0 space everyone is a potential participant in a conversation that includes your brand so best you get listening.
There is no obvious angle in this release. There is just factual information and a few quotes. It’s all true. There is no spin – well – not the kind that can be seen with the naked eye anyway. The art will come in pulling together the right background material, selecting the right kind of photography, coming up with quotes that don’t sound trite or arrogant or totally self-serving and giving the right online sites the first shot at the story.
Sound familiar? Ja, well, its still PR – just all dressed up with her iPod playing in her ears as she IMs on her new WI-FI enabled mobile phone.
Online Guinea Pig
Hiya,
Learnt something yesterday – blogging makes me feel vulnerable. I am not used to communicating and not having a clue as to who I am communicating to – employees, peers, clients, competitors, ex-boyfriends… the list of possible audiences is endless. AND I don’t know anything about them – why they are reading this, what frame of mind they are in and most terrifyingly, what they think.
That was learning two – I care a lot more than I thought I did about what the response to this is going to be.
There are a few ways to respond to this feeling. The first would be to stop all together but this seems a bit defeatist so that, for now, is not an option. An alternative would be to try not offend anyone but the result would be a blog so bland, that by the end of July not even my mother will be reading it so that isn’t really an option either. Leaving me only one course of action – to be dead honest so that there is never any manipulation of content which will make is much easier to defend should I ever need to.
Which leads me to my next question – what exactly is honesty? I don’t mean this is a ‘what is the true nature of god?’ way, just in an ‘if online is forever then how long do my opinions need to last?’ way.
After some thought, I have chosen for honesty in blogging to mean being totally authentic about what I think or feel at any point while retaining the right to change my mind completely should any new information come to light. Pretty much in line with my offline life and its worked okay so far – lets see what it does online.
So, final result of ruminations is this – that to feel less vulnerable I am going to be more open. All sounding a little Zen really…
I have also decided to write this blog for just one particular audience to take the pressure off trying to keep all potential readers in my head.
And the winners are … South African business people who are looking to understand this blogging/ world but don’t have the time or the inclination to be the guinea pig.
So here I am guys – your own personal online guinea pig – ready to start the conversation.
Sentient beginings
So here we are – my first post. This is to be an exploration of what it means to blog. I work in PR, in South Africa, which is a little behind (18 to 24 months if the experts are to be believed) the blogging wave that has taken the rest of world – well those with access to broadband – (but don’t get me started) by storm.
It has become obvious to me that the future of PR, especially IT PR (which is where my company plays) is going to be dominated by online activity but I have been thinking that its a little rude to tell clients to get blogging if I have absolutely no experience of it.
I suppose that in some ways it’s a test – what actually happens when you put your public thoughts on the Internet? I guess the worst thing would be that no one could care less – and with the number of blogs doubling in number every 6 months there is quite a high chance that this blog won’t get too much attention.
So, with the worst-case scenario being total anonymity – I shall boldly go where few South African PR persons have gone before – the blogosphere.
