How has online PR become the medium of choice in the ever-widening Internet marketing spectrum? First, a little history…
In the 1970s and 80s, advertising and direct mail were the love objects of every serious marketer. Then came traditional PR, trumpeted as the cost-effective tactical alternative in a fragmenting media market.
With the advent of Internet marketing, traditional offline PR has begun to lose some of its lustre. The simple fact is, ‘online’ is sexy. Like global warming and environmental issues, ‘You’re nobody til somebody loves you’ – as the old song has it.
No matter that media consumption currently includes both offline and online reading. The online tsunami is about to change the media landscape for ever. Or is it?
According to a recent White Paper by Daryl Willcox (of the eponymous UK publishing company – http://www.dwpub.com), traditional PR could be replaced in as few as ten years by online PR whose foundation of ‘search marketing’ accountability will make it the primary tactical weapon in most marketers’ armouries.
This is an interesting scenario and one which must frighten the pants off ‘old media’ types. Only time will tell if the soothsayers are correct in their predictions. The evidence currently available suggests that most of us will remain omnivorous in our choice of media.
Yes, we’ll go a-Googling. We may even sign up for an RSS feed or two. But we’ll also take a tabloid to bed, and maybe even a magazine or book.
For hard facts and instant information, the Internet is an awesome animal. To have multiple Wikipedias at our fingertips is something few of us would have foreseen ten years ago. Maybe the next ten years will see the media go in a similarly unforeseen direction. But these will only be ‘in addition to’ and not ‘instead of’ current choices.
PR practitioners should embrace online PR. Combining it with traditional offline messaging will provide essential belt-and-braces support to reach publics who are themselves caught up in this maelstrom of (welcome) choice.
Shifted Pixels offers Online PR advisory services for Traditional PR Agencies, Contact us for more information.
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