Blogs & RSS top list of 4 PR Trends

Joan Stewart, a publicity expert and publisher of The Publicity Hound has spotted 4 new trends in public relations.  Blogs and RSS top the list. Here’s highlights on the 4 PR trends.

Trend #1: Blogging

• By far, this is the most important development in the last year, and not just for PR people.
• Growing at the rate of at least 30,000 new blogs a day.
• No longer have to rely only on the media to get your message to the masses.
• Can create your own blog in an hour or two, and communicate directly with your customers and the public.
• Blog expert Peter Blackshaw of Inteliseek said “Blogs are like ‘megaphones on steroids, whether you think bloggers are crackpots or not, many consumers trust them more than they trust you.”

Trend #2: RSS Feeds

• Automatically sends your blog posts or new content at your website to those who ask for it.
• Includes everybody from your customers and shareholders to journalists who cover your topic.
• RSS feeds are a valuable research tool to check on what your competitors are doing by subscribing to RSS feeds from their sites and from blogs that keep you up to date on industry trends.

Trend #3: Online Media Rooms

• Journalists are doing research online.
• Journalists are frustrated by the inability of companies to post up-to-date, relevant information at company websites.
• Reporters are bothered by things such as flash sites, poor navigation, no immediate contact information, forms they’re asked to fill out, no print-quality images, and things they must download.

Trend #4: PR Measurement

• Smart promoters are measuring business outcomes.
• Gone are the days when people measured the success of their PR campaigns by a bucket full of clippings.
• Ask questions like:
  • Did our publicity change minds?
  • Move markets?
  • Influence people’s decisions?
  • Did we sell more?
  • Did we increase market share?
• Before you begin a PR campaign, carefully define your goals.
• Judge the success of the campaign by whether or not the publicity helped you reach your goals.

Great stuff Joan. Looking for more from Joan? You can subscribe to her newsletter on her site and look for her upcoming blog.

Source of post: Larry Bodine’s Professional Marketing Blog