Is this one of the PR equations that you know?

Companies w/   +     journalist +    media          = BE PUBLISHED

press release                                                (newspaper)

Yes? You’re not alone. I also think that way before—one way to get your company be published and be known was through press releases in newspapers. Media plays an important role to do PR. In fact, media was constant in the process. And one way to assess the effectiveness was whether the written press releases were actually picked-up and get published. However, there’s another equation which is more engaging.

YOU+ perspective on how can the product help the clients? + NSM =  PR

In the second equation, YOU can now be a part of the process. How? You can do it through blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and other new social media tools. Basically, what you will be publishing through blogs and other NSM tools would be more personal, direct, and authentic. There will be spin of perspective from other people who will read your piece; it is not anymore written by a company with just a mindset of promoting themselves and their product, but it is a piece created by an ordinary consumer/client with a viewpoint that may be similar to them. In that way you are connecting and engaging more to your stakeholders as well as to your potential consumers.

Furthermore, you give the audience the chance to participate plus you build personal relationships with them. Since you’re posting what you’ve done in the Internet, your audience can now actually give comments about it. If more people would comment about it the exchange of viewpoints between and among consumers would be inevitable. By that, you and the company would gather more information on what do the audience really think about it.

PR today is no longer seeing your boss or spokesperson of your company on TV; it’s having an online presence. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) enters. Almost all people in the world have tried to Google something when they want information about what they’re looking for. Therefore, it would be an advantage if the company would be visible when searched over the net (of course, there should be valuable contents with it).

I’m not saying that the traditional and conventional way to do PR should be totally abandoned. What I’m saying is it is not bad either if we try to utilize and explore other options given by modernity. After all, that is why technology and innovation is present–to make use of it and widen what it offers so that more people can benefit from it.


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