The new media landscape has created huge PR opportunities for companies and organizations yet many have failed to recognize these. One of the great advantages is the simple shift from a media landscape based on control to one based on openness. This situation is caused by the unique fact that consumers can now cheaply and effortlessly create content. In the past the high costs of production forced the content to be produced by large and specialized media companies. They subsequently had the final word on what they wanted to distribute. But, in a world where anybody can produce content at minimal cost, the gatekeepers are bypassed and companies can independently decide what they deem to be newsworthy. This valuable opportunity enables them to keep their publics informed day-in day-out and increases their ability to react rapidly in the event of a crisis. More significantly though, this shift has enabled them to be directly connected to their audiences.
Some will argue that this is not beneficial to PR, as skipping the gatekeepers also does away with the opportunity to benefit from “3rd party credibility”. While this might seem like a valid point, I tend to believe that the shift in the landscape hasn’t completely altered the phenomenon of credibility and that the benefits brought on by the changes firmly outweigh the disadvantages. Remember that any new medium also brings new producers, and that it is inevitable that some of these producers will become more trusted than others. Hence, contrary to public belief, organizations can still benefit from 3rd party credibility in new media platforms on the Internet. The credibility just doesn’t belong to the same people they used to deal with. Chris Brogan, a media consultant, author and respected marketing expert calls these new sources of online credibility ‘trust agents’. He defines them as: “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness” (Brogan, Smith) While they can take many forms, trust agents are most commonly bloggers that gain high amounts of authority & trust on the Internet and subsequently develop a huge community of readers.
Engaging with and using such new sources of credibility is part of the changes companies must make. As a matter a fact, in some cases it may be more beneficial for organizations to get online ‘trust agents’ to preach their message than to use traditional large-scale media outlets. This is due to the fact that their (trust agents) communities are extremely targeted, specialized and dedicated to the subjects they follow. This relevance is crucial. In other words, speaking to 1 million people is useless if only 50 are interested in your cause. Ultimately, the goal is to get these dedicated followers to preach the organizations messages as well. It becomes a virtuous circle of word of mouth.
While some might want to stick solely to traditional media, I would argue that developing relationships with ‘trust agents’ is a compulsory part of corporate public relations in this new media landscape. Not engaging with these agents and their communities could very well be fatal. Consider the following: “A recent PEW study found that nearly 40% of Americans say they have doubted a medical professional’s opinion or diagnosis because it conflicted with information they’d found online. If users put that much faith in what they learn on the Internet, what will they be willing to believe if members of a social media forum start trashing your organization?” (Kane, Fichman, Gallaugher, Glaser) The reality of the current situation is that people will be talking about brands and companies online whether they like it or not. Chris Anderson, a bestselling author and the chief editor at Wired magazine comically expresses this idea when he states: “Your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is.” (Anderson Chris) Consumers have been voicing their ideas, thoughts, concerns, worships and complaints over these online media channels for years. It is now up to companies to do the same. Doing so will ensure that they remain in control of their image and reputation while portraying engagement. In the end, this will also enable them to develop better relationships with their stakeholders; which was the goal of public relations in the first place.
Brian Solis, author of "Putting the Public Back In Public Relations" presents this brilliant graph that exposes the multitude of new media channels available to PR in this day and age, while giving some quick insight on how to use them. Creative Commons photo courtesy of briansolis.com
