Self Directed

Study
Is it the Advent of the Microchip
that has helped Public Relations
evolve over the decade?

--Submitted By
Ritesh Shete
M8064
Public Relations
ISB&M, Pune.
Microchips have off-late become one of the essential
tools without which the IT industry seems to have no
future. Ever since the evolution of microchip by Jack
Kilby, the IT industry has developed rapidly. It has
now become the basic building block of everything
from cell phones to supercomputers and has laid the
foundation for the entire digital world including the
Internet (an another form of it is Web 2.0, which
has helped Public Relations evolve over the decade).

Before this invention computers were like empty

boxes that acquired only space & no value.
Computers were prone to the problem of
overheating, burnouts and not efficient enough in
their performance level. The robust and reliable
microchip on the other hand incorporates all the
features of a large circuit design on one single unit
which then can be mass-produced cheaply. The
present scenario shows that its size has gone down
to the nanometer scale with even more elements
incorporated into it.

Well we can continue to reap the benefits of

miniaturization while spending less at the same time.
Certainly it is one of the greatest inventions of the
era, which is the single most important driver of
increased productivity and economic growth.
Technology is increasingly becoming a key ingredient
in education both at home and school, offering
learners more choice and flexibility in how and where
they learn.

The term Web 2.0 was coined in 2004 to describe a

shift towards new ways of using the web as a
platform for tools and services that have an
emphasis on user participation and interaction. Now
the use of social networking sites, Blogs, Wikis,
Social bookmarking and media sharing have become
widespread. The existence of such online applications
and services as Facebook and YouTube are well
known amongst teachers, who are often users of this
technology themselves in their private lives, but may
not recognize the educational potential for their
students and for every individual to be concise.

Young people are reported to spend almost as much

time online as they do watching TV, and they are
particularly attracted to many Web 2.0
developments, finding the social aspects of easy
communication, co-ordination and online expression
of personal identities appealing. The speed at which
the internet has developed is phenomenal, and the
rapid way that young people have taken to Web 2.0
can be challenging to comprehend for those who
haven't grown up with it. However, these tools, used
correctly, could bring huge benefits and support
learning in more creative, social and participatory
ways.

Public Relations isn’t narrow it’s broad. When

properly practiced it encompasses every single
stakeholder (“Public”) an organization deals with in
its daily life. Employees, Consumers, Local
communities, Local/state/federal governments,
Bloggers, Partners, Policy makers, Channels,
Reporters, Industry analysts, Stockholders. Literally,
everyone an organization touches. To become a
successful brand, a product or service must become
a personal, positive thing – an individual experience
– something that feeds a person’s own self identity.
Great PR is focused on helping a company
strategically figure out how to deliver a consistent
brand experience, which in turn, yields a community
of interested, involved participants.

All well said and done, but where is all this heading
towards, where is Public Relations heading towards
with the advent of the Microchip.
Let’s analyze Public Relations in a Web 2.0 world.
The Web has changed the rules for press releases.
The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don’t
know it yet. Because the rules for relating to the
public have changed so slowly over the decade
(since the Web has allowed people to read press
releases directly), practitioners who learned based
on the old rules have been equally slow to change.
In fact, most old-school experts have refused to
change altogether. It is time to step it up and
consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds.

Here are some questions that erupt in each and

every PR practitioners mind and his organization with
whom he is associated with.

 Do we want to reach your buyers directly?

 Do we want to drive traffic to your Web
site?
 Do we want to achieve high rankings on the
search engines?
 Do we want to compete more effectively?

The answer is certainly yes. Web has changed all the

old rules. Buyers read your press releases directly
and you need to be talking their language. This is
not to suggest that media relations are no longer
important. But your primary audience is no longer
just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions
of people with Internet connections and access to
search engines and RSS readers. Every organization
possesses particular expertise that has value in the
new e-marketplace of ideas. The Web has made it
easy for organizations to publish that expertise in
various forms, including press releases, which allows
companies, institutions, and non-profits to function
much like traditional publishers. Organizations gain
credibility and loyalty with customers, employees,
investors, and suppliers through content and smart
Web marketers now think and act like publishers in
order to create and deliver content targeted directly
at their audience.

The generation next tools of Web 2.0: social

networking sites, Blogs, Wikis, Social bookmarking,
and thanks to the advent of Microchip.

Many aspects of technology recently have challenged

how Public Relations is practiced. Public Relations in
the digital age requires understanding how your key
constituents are gathering and sharing information
and then influencing them at key points. Doing so
requires strategies that embrace the digital age. Just
as important to public relations practitioners as the
number of Blogs is how many of them are news-
related. Technorati a search tool that tracks Blogging
topics, links and trends, indicates more than 50,000
Blogs which mention typical news events every day
and on some days that figure is greater than
100,000.There are several reasons why employees
are Blogging.

These include:
 Becoming an Expert: Positioning the employee
as a thought leader.
 Testing: The conversational and informal nature
of Blogs, and the ability to encourage audience
feedback, makes Blogging a good way to bring
out ideas and see if they generate interest.
 Personalizing: Employees can use Blogs to
personalize relationships with other employees
and members of other strategic publics
(customers, stockholders, etc.).

Even though some organizations encourage

employee Blogging, many organizations do not
because they fear employees might misuse
employee Blogs and either communicate negative
information about the company or exchange
confidential information.

So then how have Blogs and usage of Social Media

enhanced the practice of Public Relations. What does
the usage of Social Media mean.Social Media is an
umbrella term that defines various activities that
integrate the technology, social interaction, and the
construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.
More simply put “Social Media is people having
conversations online”. The conversations are
powered by:
 Blogs
 Online Chat
 RSS
 Social Networks
 Social Bookmarks
 Podcasts
 Video Sharing Sites
 Message Boards
 Photo Sharing Sites
 Virtual Worlds
 Wikis
So what makes Social Media so special which
enhances PR practice. Almost more than 4,00,000
articles on Wikipedia, more than 1 crore videos on
Youtube, more than 2,00,000 Blogs on the
Blogosphere, 1 million residents on Second
Life(the virtual world), 40% have started their own
Blogs including me, almost every one subscribes to
RSS feed, almost 50% have joined social network
sites, 60% have watched videos online, and finally
in 2009, if you are not on a social network site,
you are not on the internet. Mind it!! It’s not a
craze, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we
communicate. Most of the brands shout at
audience through advertising. People who can skip
TV ads, do it just for the very reason that he is
been bombarded with hundreds of advertising
messages per day. Not many do trust on
advertising. The audience is clever enough what to
absorb and what not to. They very much depend
on recommendations of other consumers.
“Content is the new way and we the people,
are ensuring that are voices are heard”. Social
Media says tomorrow’s consumers are today’s
digital natives. The goal is not to control the
conversation, but the goal is to keep audience
engaged in a dialogue. Any Blog that spins the
truth will be found out. In a world of Social Media
honesty is the only policy.

The Internet has brought about a revolution in

marketing far beyond the scope that even the
most forward-thinking of us might have imagined.
More and more people, be they journalists,
pundits, experts , are taking to the Internet to put
forward their views to anyone who will listen and
many are now wielding considerable influence over
what consumers buy, think and do. The point is
that a Blog is a dialog. A Blog is not just a
corporate Web site in a different dress. It is not
just a marketing tool. It is a way to establish social
networks that may of may not help sell products.
But direct selling is not the point of a Blog. And, in
order to be effective you have to have something
to say. The reason Blogs become popular is that
they reflect the real personalities and values of the
people writing them. No one reads a Blog to get
more corporate-speak. They read Blogs to get the
information BEHIND the corporate speak.

Social media is rapidly becoming a core channel

for disseminating information. Blogs, online video
and social networks are currently the most popular
social media tools, but PR and corporate
communications professionals are using a wide
variety of means to reach audiences, depending on
their unique situations.Currently, the top criteria
for determining the relevance and potential
influence of a blogger or podcaster are: Quality of
content, relevance of content to the company or
brand and search engine rank; however, new
metrics are emerging and these criteria could
quickly change. The top criteria for evaluating a
person’s influence in online communities and social
networks are participation level, frequency of
activity and prominence in the market or
community. About half of the communicators are
formally measuring the effects of their social
media initiatives. Their key goals are to enhance
relationships with key audiences, improve the
reputation of their businesses, and drive customer
awareness of their online activities and to solicit
customer comments and feedback.

In short, social media is clearly changing the way

we think about media and influence, but even as
more companies adopt social media, they are still
struggling to find effective metrics for deciding
who the most influential players are. Regardless of
what our organization does or who its
constituencies are, the revolution that social media
is creating will sooner or later have an impact.
What that impact is, and how we respond will
depend on data. Only by measuring this new social
media will you be able to manage that impact.

So how far have we come and how fast in the

world of Web 2.0. How can I forget to mention
about Online/Digital PR which is one of the
latest ongoing trends.

Online PR is a subset of public relations that uses

traditional PR tools and techniques in a new
medium – the Internet. Since the Internet has
radically changed the way we communicate,
source, and use news & information; to reach our
public we have to know where they are reading,
listening or viewing online. Online PR is a practice
that is fascinating and a personal favorite.
Adopting an online PR strategy is a must today if
you are handling a technology client. That said it is
not restricted to technology companies. There are
dozens of lists of companies outside the
technology vertical that have successfully
benefited from well-planned online PR campaigns.

So how do we map all these consequences of

technology on Public Relations?
From Orkut to mash-up media(An emerging form
of content or message technique is called “mash-
up” media), new technology presents significant
implications for public relations. Whether in the
form of Blogs, podcasts or YouTube videos, the
Internet and World Wide Web have transformed
how the public accesses information. The
traditional role of media gatekeepers is in a state
of enormous flow. Moreover, a wide spectrum of
other technologies, ranging from satellites, to cell
phones, to video news releases, has become the
standard tools that continue to influence public
relations practices and policies.

Technology has many significant implications for

the content or messages developed and utilized in
public relations. Blogs, podcasts and Web sites in
general all present vehicles for distributing
messages to a variety of publics. Expanded use of
audio and video files – podcasts, vodcasts – is a
major trend. Moreover, these media can shape the
character of the messages themselves. Text
messaging via cell phones has emerged as a viable
means to reach mobile publics, especially youthful
targets. Because of the nature of the medium, the
messages must conform to certain strict
parameters. Among these parameters are text-
only, short messages, and often messages
encoded in short-hand, such as “LOL” for Lots of
laughs or “c2it” for see to it. The Lingo 2 Word
Web site provides a comprehensive alphabetic
listing of text messaging terminology and
characters. There is an important difference
between technologies that modify existing
channels of communication and technology that is
changing the environment for all communication.

The Internet has successfully introduced three

revolutionary elements into the field of
communications. First is the publication of
electronic versions of print and broadcast news
products. Second are online databases of credible
sources of information, such as scientific literature
and public records. Third are inexpensive Weblogs
published by private individuals, many of whom
use news coverage as a base upon which to
provide commentary and analysis by themselves
and their readers, who sometimes are experts in
the field, but participate anonymously, for the
most part. Stakeholders can now communicate
with each other about an organization in a very
public way. As stakeholder strength increases, PR
practitioners will have to develop strategies that
deal with the rising power of different stakeholders
on the Web. There is also an important difference
between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. From a strategic
communication perspective, Web 1.0 was basically
adding a technological capability to existing
techniques ideally suited to public relations or
marketing. “Web 1.0 meant better pathways to
sending information to publics, editorially based,
and right up our audience. There is a fundamental
shift in what Web 2.0 has enabled and the way it's
being used”.

Web 2.0 is breaking this down. Web 2.0 is

empowering citizens to communicate directly
online and the organization can be left out of the
conversation entirely. The people who are
participating in this conversation are the people
who have access to broadband technology. It's not
just access to the Internet. The next phase may be
the expansion of broadband into mobile phones,
mobile media.

There is also a possibility of the impact of

technology on relationships between their
organizations and publics. As audiences have
increased their use of the Internet and have grown
more savvy with digital media of all types, public
relations has needed to evolve with them.
Audience members, or members of often key
publics, maintain their own Web sites, blogs or
podcasts, often circumventing traditional media
outlets. Practitioners monitor such online sources
alongside traditional media outlets. These citizen
produced online media can be influential and
widely seen and accounting for them may be
essential to a public relations campaign. Gauging
public opinion can also involve the use of online
media. Conducting public opinion surveys online is
now a common practice in public relations.
Facilitating two-way or interactive dialogs with
various publics can depend upon the use of email,
discussion boards or other online media. In this
context, digital, networked communications such
as those possible on the Internet and World Wide
Web make possible the cost-effective advent of
two-way symmetrical communications. This is a
profound opportunity for public relations
professionals to implement more effective,
balanced communications with various publics.

Internet technologies can be especially useful in

communicating with external publics. “Online is
especially valuable when people are seeking
information about organizations – so anticipate
needs, concerns and interests of publics. Involve
people when they are interested. Optimize search
engine searches, make content useable. Be
accessible 24/7, maximize the interactive nature of
Web and mobile media. Such access is especially
important in times of crisis or risk. These
computer-based technologies can potentially
provide highly cost-effective methods for not only
tracking news media coverage and correlated
public opinion indicators, but help in assessing
media agenda setting and news media framing.
Further, emerging digital technologies enable the
automatic tracking of video based on the content
features of the video. For instance, company logos
or topics of interest might be automatically
monitored on a variety of video file sharing Web
sites. Social networking sites such as MySpace and
video file sharing sites such as YouTube also have
enormous implications for public relations.

As millions of users populate such Web sites and

spend increasing amounts of time immersed in
them, these online environments become
increasingly relevant to the communication
strategies for organizations. Yet, how to
appropriately participate or communicate in these
online environments where sometimes the social
and cultural rules are stricter than the legal
requirements can present a slippery slope. At the
same time, consumers are empowered by digital
technologies to voice their opinions more easily
and more powerfully via social networking sites,
including creating and posting their own videos,
sometimes griping against corporate practices they
find objectionable. How to respond effectively is an
increasing challenge for many organizations.
Transparency, immediacy and clarity are among
the key elements in the process.