The new online communication tools have a potential in relationship-building and in developing new ways of communicating with public.
However, the Internet has changed “the management of relationships between publics and organisations and/or the management of communications between publics and organisations.” (Fitch, 2009). PR now cannot use the traditional way to maintain the average no. Of people who watch the existing broadcast media because of the uncontrolled world of new media. People around the world who have an internet connection can be a publisher and everyone is connected through the Internet (with blogs, Twitter, Facebook).
With Twitter/Facebook, anyone can just write a group page and spread it to their friends. Their friends of friends might also see the page. It needs no cost and even though it gets low feedback, at least people can see our products or services.
Shunji Matsuo, a Japanese hair expert is also aware of this trend. The PR person is very creative indeed that they invited local bloggers to an event to try out their new hair-wig products hoping that they will write about it and spread it on everybody else.
This is somehow related to the theories being discussed in the book which is, one theory has proved that the Internet is only for scatter information and not for boosting up discussion or dialogue. But the other side said that Internet can enhance two-way communication and can let the information to flow without organisations or gatekeepers’ control. This may pose another problem which is changing the capacity of an organisation to communicate with respect to legitimacy of leadership, authenticity of message and the relationship with stakeholders.
So, again we need to be aware of the environment of the country we’re working on depending on the usage and accessibility of the Internet. Some rural areas or communist countries have less access to Internet. Like China, they have banned some international sites. Recently, Google also was threatening to leave China.
To sum up, we have to be conscious and stay up to date to the trend. And all we need to do is to take advantage of this opportunity by getting active online – Paull Young.
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hi, looking through to your blog, I very much agree the fact that you said about how popular twittering, blogging and facebooking are amonng public nowadays. Yet, it is also true that it does not completely play the whole potential role in building the relationships between the company and public.
ReplyDeletePublic will never aware if you promote a product or a service only via new media.
Practitioner has to be more detailed in a way they promoting something.
yea. you can use the internet technology to engage the publics. But i think its just consider as an additional tactics to serve the strategic purpose. which as a professional PR, you cannot completely depend on it to achieve your organization's goals. isnt it? :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with both of you. I think the Internet is only useful for spreading information, not to create a two-way communication or even persuade people to buy. Also, we still have to put on much more effort to promote our products/services besides creating a website or put it on youtube.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the new medias such as internet has create an two-way communication which can not be offered by mainstream medias such as newspapers, magazines or television. With the development of new medias, people create their own blogs online which makes others free to comment and news-crossing. Meanwhile, it also helps public relations practitioners to do their jobs effectively. For example, they can upload their ideas or put some announcement online so that employees can browse them online which saves time and money.
ReplyDelete