If you see the term online PR it might be referring to one of two things. The expression online PR can be used in relation to a company’s online profile; the presence your website enjoys and the authority it carries. Alternatively, the term online PR is also used to refer to online press releases. Online press releases are optimised link-embedded releases syndicated to relevant industry news sites for both SEO (search engine optimisation) and their inherent newsworthiness.

Let’s look at the first use – online PR in the sense of web marketing or Internet marketing.

Online PR is the representation of an organisation (even an individual) through online activity. It’s the way your web presence portrays and reflects your products, services, support, policies, personality and ethos. Online PR is 360 degrees, covering every aspect of who and what you are as an organisation or brand. Online PR directly and indirectly impacts on image, on reputation, the feelings that people have towards you and the impression they build of you.

There are numerous established online channels through which to conduct PR, including traditional-type press release syndication organisations and other media that aggregate and share news. The emergence of social media and social media marketing though means that now, if you have a tale to tell, a success you wish to share, an authority you want to underscore or even a potentially damaging situation you wish to defuse there are many more opportunities to disseminate the information.

Such is the nature of the modern Internet that more often than not the conversation, the story, takes care of itself. Organisations now need to do little more than ‘touch’ their audience with the information and the net spreads it organically. For some, this lack of news and information management might represent a threat. Others see many online PR and marketing opportunities through new social media channels.

The important thing is to engage. Online PR value lies in honest and sincere interaction – essentially a conversation between you and your customers. By engaging with bloggers, posters, followers, friends, users and others taking part in the online conversation it is possible to evolve a respected and authoritative voice, to establish a presence that reflects the value of what you as an organisation do, what you stand for, how and why you are relevant.

Tags: Press Release, Public Relations

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 3:04 pm and is filed under PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.