ONLINE PR COMES OF AGE

It is a cliché to say that we are living in a “global village.” The communication revolution that has taken place over the past few years, and that is still evolving, has moved at such speed that few of us care to remember that a few years ago the fax was a novelty. Now the Internet and email usage have made the “village” even smaller. Like in a traditional village, we come to know everything that happens in any corner within minutes. Quite often the speed of dissemination of information is several times faster than that of a traditional village where weather and nature would often come in the way of spreading the news. In the cyber world no such obstacles arise, except occasional hiccups like viruses or hacking.

If the dissemination of news has become an easy task for media organizations, then there has been an equally amazing transformation in the way companies and their publicity agencies supply content to media and get it posted online. It seems like it was just the other day when the print media was the sovereign and sole disseminator of information and news. Opportunities of corporate news being published were limited, and quite often companies and their PR agencies had to bang their heads against the wall thinking of ways to get a few hits in the print media. Quite often, the press clipping reports presented to the client would run into just a handful of pages, to the embarrassment of the agency.

Almost overnight, the scenario has changed. Mushrooming news portals, websites, publishing news and online versions of print publications have opened new windows for corporate news publishing. With minimum effort, one can extend traditional PR to the online community, with just a PC and an Internet connection. It is a revolution that is bringing big rewards to both PR agencies and their clients.

The growth of online news portals is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Middle East, but there are fast-moving developments that indicate that PR agencies and corporates are looking at online PR as a powerful complement to the coverage in print media, radio and television. The role of online PR has gained major importance in the region’s media circles. PR agencies are increasingly banking on online coverage to boost their PR campaigns and add weight, literally and figuratively, to their PR reports.

Middle East portals have grown not only in quantity, but in quality as well. Many of them provide rich archiving and background material on companies, complete with company history and financial details. There are as many as 70 websites in the Middle East that are used by PR agencies to post press releases for their clients. News portals like Ameinfo.com, Arabia.com, naseej.com, CPI.net, DIT.net and ITP.net are among the few leading the region’s pursuit of high standards in online resource creation. These websites offer the easiest way to publish authored content. Online PR is thus showing signs of becoming a parallel coverage platform that in due course could be a match for the print media in the region.

Online PR brings unparalleled advantages. It is quick to be published, often just a few minutes after one has despatched the story. It can be forwarded to clients and friends, without any problems. Online PR knows no boundaries. A press release dispatched from Dubai could be posted on websites based in New York, London and New Delhi within minutes of sending it.

PR practitioners are also discovering another amazing feature of online PR: quick two- way communication. The recipients can immediately contact the sender for clarifications, elaboration of certain points or leads to related stories. No more the headache of trying to trace the sender through numerous phone calls. What’s more, the sender invariably replies almost instantly. The result – the journalist has got his story, the PR agency has added value to client servicing and the client goes home with excellent coverage.

Online PR gives users international exposure. Someone in California might read a press release at the same time as an editor of a newspaper in Dubai. Online press releases also offer convenience to the media, such as quick editing or rewriting, saving them the bother of retyping.

PR practitioners have been painstakingly refining their practices to gain maximum advantage from new technology. Orient Planet, for example, has succeeded in overcoming the problems of sending large photo files as attachments to stories by providing links for downloading the images. This saves the recipients from being bombarded by large files, which are often rejected by their Inboxes. Online PR also provides critical tools to journalists such as easily accessible archival material, thus enabling writing of stories with minimum leg-work.

With online PR, agencies can create newsgroups, which enables them to customize releases as per a specific database. They can create networked communities that bring great ease into the business of supplying content. More importantly, the speed at which this can be done makes the old system look shamefully obsolete.

With the advent of online PR, media monitoring is no longer the back-breaking and eye-straining job it used to be. Most websites have search engines that lead users straight to the story. Media monitoring of regional publications has also become extremely simple and one need not wait for the papers from distant corners to arrive at one’s desk.

Just how strong online PR is can be gauged from the success story of PR Newswire (PRN), the world’s largest electronic distributor of news releases. It has over 40,000 members worldwide, including several small businesses that are charmed by the amazing and quick global exposure PRN gives to their press releases.

While cyber space is the new and exciting face of PR, online press releases are just one aspect of the revolution sweeping the media world. The emergence of e-newsletters is another area that offers immense possibilities for companies to do round-the-clock results-oriented PR. If current trends are any indication, most companies will have their newsletters in cyber space and some may even abandon their printed versions.

It has been proven that most newspaper editors and heads of media corporations now scout the online pages for fresh insights and ideas. The sheer versatility of online publishing, including archiving and research facilities, makes it an invaluable resource for all. A new international study reveals that journalists are now finding it easier to locate PR-related information on corporate websites and news portals. There has been a marked improvement in the way websites organise and design their content. Online press releases are, therefore, becoming increasingly the common and acceptable resource for news reporters.

Yet, online PR is not without its pitfalls. Online content can be deceptive if the portals and companies do not update the information on a regular basis. This can lead to confusion and users who rely on such information can get into trouble for inaccuracy. Online websites can also be used by vested interests for spreading lies and half-truths more easily than they can do in the print media.

The few negative aspects of online PR, however, far outweigh its amazing benefits. Online PR has brought to the doorstep of PR practitioners a friendly and highly effective medium that asks few questions, demands little and provides great value for money. With the emergence of online PR, the industry will never be the same again.