Beyond the Hype:
RSS, Blogs
and All That Stuff
Many years ago, in "Paperback
Writer,"
Mark Shipper's wonderful satirical
biography of the Beatles, we learned that
the Fab Four changed pop music forever
with their hit album, "We're Going To
Change Pop Music Forever."
Well, for those of us in the PR business,
now every hour brings another e-mail plugging some seminar on
RSS, blogs and all the other tools that are going to change PR
forever.
In truth, these tools, in and of
themselves, don't radically change the nature of public
relations practice. But they are important. More
than a decade after the advent of e-mail, online technologies
are finally blowing apart some long-held notions of what
"the media" is, and how PR practitioners can reach
their audiences.
Space doesn't permit an exhaustive review
of the new techniques in this newsletter, but here's a quick
overview - and some thoughts on where communicators go from
here.
Blog -
Condensed from "web log." This is a regularly
updated, one- or two-way communication presented through a
website. At its heart, a blog is nothing complicated at
all - it's a series of postings from somebody who wants to
spread the word about something. Readers may, or may not,
respond, depending on what the creator wants. This style
of communication has been around the Internet for years, on
bulletin boards and such, but new technologies now make it very
easy for virtually anybody to put up a blog of their own.
For strategic communicators, the blog
explosion means two things. It's a new (and easy) tool to
use to share your organization's point of view with the world.
But more importantly, it means literally thousands of new
"media outlets" to watch and communicate with.
In
the blogosphere, anyone with an internet
connection can become a worldwide authority on any topic.
And importantly, mainstream reporters are now not only
reading blogs, but quoting them in their reporting, just as
they would quote a report from The New York Times.
RSS - Really
Simple Syndication. This is a system by which computer
users can receive instant updates from various websites or
blogs they're interested in. For instance, rather than
having to remember to check dozens of websites you want to
monitor, you can subscribe to their RSS feeds, and you'll be
notified instantly every time they're updated. These updates
can appear either in your newsreader software (a queue separate
from, although similar to, your e-mail software), or on the web
at any number of "personal" pages you can set up,
such as My YahooTM.
Perhaps the greatest applicability of RSS
for communicators is the ability to quickly
monitor what's being said about your
company or your competitors. Some observers also believe
that journalists will adopt RSS feeds as their preferred method
of receiving press releases and such, since their e-mail
inboxes are so filled with spam. Since you have to
subscribe to an RSS feed in order to receive it, in theory, you
can't be bombarded with stuff you don't want. However,
RSS seems slow to catch on with the media. An informal Hayslett
Group survey of Georgia journalists found only about one in 10
using it regularly.
Wiki -
Shorthand for a collaborative, public site or project. The most
famous is the Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that
anyone can edit or contribute to. In this way, users of
the content actually shape the content. And yes, that
means some things you read in wiki world aren't true.
What This Means To You - These new online tools are just that - tools.
They help communicators (PR pros and otherwise) reach
many people in fast and engaging ways. You and your
company don't necessarily need a blog just because everyone
else is getting one. What you do need to do is
communicate - and these tools are part of any modern
communicator's tool kit. And if you are not communicating
regularly and electronically with people who might have an
interest in your company or product, you're missing not just an
online trend, but a crucial business opportunity.
