Public Relations & The Impact of New Media Essay

worldly concern traffic is a pivotal part of all business beca exercise it is the most direct confabulation between the business and the cosmos. For a business to enjoy long term success it has to have the energy to evolve and adapt with the ever changing trends of the populace in golf club to understand the needs and concerns of the general usual. Author and entrepreneur Deirdre K. Breakenridge (2008) states in her hold up PR 2.0 new-fangled Media, unfermented Tools, New Audiences that Its critical for PR professionals to read, be knowledgeable, and stay extremely well versed ab unwrap the markets their brands look for to fall out. The 20th century brought TV, radio, and the profits, which greatly impacted the practice of popular Relations. only if just as these media carry brought impact and change to the practice of everyday dealing then, so will the rise of new media in the twenty-first Century.With the emergence of many new online communication tools and cha nnel due to the expert advancements of our time, public transaction practitioners can no longer rely only on traditionalistic media to channel their inwardnesss. Today new media has been recognised as one of the strongest forms of channelling messages across to the public. It is extremely vital that PR practitioners learn, explore, and understand the use of new media and the offices it can play in public dealing causal agents. This endeavor will examine the roles new media play in public transaction campaigns and what the prevalence of new media imply for PR practitioners.Today new media is at the heart of companies public relations and marketing initiatives. One of the roles of new media in public relations is to build efficient and sound communication between public relations practitioners, or an organization they represent, and the different specific public groups they argon trying to reach. Public relations practitioners rely on the tools and channels that new media pr ovide for different purposes, all of which ar part of effective communication and connecting with the public. Some of the purposes include building or maintaining relationships, garnering support and re barfation, gaining feedback, delivering real messages or news.In this day and age it has become essential for public relations to interlace in continuous dialogue with the public. As the shipway in which people transmit and receive information are rapidly evolving so must the ways in which PR interacts with the public. With new tools that are open to PR practitioners for communicating like E-mails, websites, digital/online newsletters, intercommunicates, viral marketing, essay engines, live conference calls, RSS and podcasting. (Aronson, Spetner and Ames, 2007, p. 1), new media provides enhanced information delivery systems and granting all(prenominal)one with weak access to vehicles of mass communication. Theaker (2008) indicates that Websites are already regarded as a mai nstream grammatical constituent of corporate communications, and PR practitioners should be involved when clients set up websites,. The Internet provides the unique opportunity for people of all ages to acquire, digest, and understand a message through images, graphics, video, audio and other visual displays which the traditional media could not put together to effectively communicate. (Macky, 2011, p. 1).In addition to its use for connecting with the target public. New media can also be used in public relations for connecting with media outlets. Many trade publications, magazines and bloggers run blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for their news source. Majority of the up-to-the-minute news and cultural trends are carried on social networks and micro blogging service like Facebook and Twitter. Fitch (2009) states that blogs have value as research tools in that they offer an insight to the complexity, subtlety, diversity, and the contradictions and lack of cohesion in publ ic opinion. Public relations practitioners would find that staying connected with the mass public through these channels would effectively increase their knowledge and understanding of the latest trends and happenings that people are talking about or are heavily influenced by. This particular role plays an important part in the strategies and tactics of how a public relations practitioner would carry out a campaign or check it in a time of crisis.KFCs 2010 scholarship squelch campaign was a great example of how effective new media can be in the practice of a public relations campaign. With 2.5 million college scholarships giveed every year in the U.S., KFC determined it had to cook up something innovative to scold buzz around the brands 75-scholarship Colonels Scholars program. KFC collaborated with Weber-Shandwick to reach out to a younger generation by employing trendy social media strategies. KFC and Weber-Shandwick decided to do away with the tired old college scholarship e ssay and award students a $20,000 scholarship based solely on a angiotensin-converting enzyme tweet to convince KFC execs why they deserved a scholarship.The scholarship tweet campaign generated much than 1,000 media placements and tens of millions of media impressions, including two AP Wire stories, multiple stories on CNN advertise News, MSNBC, The Weather Channel and NBC national news. The program also captivated the online world, generating more than nine million social media impressions as a result of tweets during the picture entry period. In all, more than 2,800 applicants tweeted for their chance at $20,000, and the KFC Twitter extend saw a 20% jump in followers in just two weeks.But with the rise of new media on the internet, in that location is now a much greater ethical responsibilities with how PR practitioners handle the use of these tools. Qualitative as well as quantitative analytic thinking is required because reported case studies indicate that some organisa tions and companies are attempting to engage in the what is now termed Web 2.0 social media environment using traditional methods of one-way information transmission and a control paradigm of communication characteristic of mass media (Gregory, 2004, p. 246).For example, some public relations departments and agencies have created belie blogs such as Wal-Marting Across America. In the former case, public relations firm Edelman created an organisation called Working Families for Wal-Mart which published a blog in which Jim and Laura allegedly reported their personal adventures driving across America in an RV which happened to include regular visits to Wal-Mart stores. Other bloggers including Wal-Mart Watch and later BusinessWeek quickly detected falsity and revealed that the couple were employed by Edelman on behalf of Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart,Edelman flogged for blog, 2006). Wal-Mart and Edelman Public Relations were severely criticised for the contrive blog and creation of the fake org anisation, referred to as astro-turfing (Gogoi, 2006).And so with New media, many changes have been introduced to the practice of public relations in multiple ways. Most significantly in the flaw from one-way PR communications to a two or multi-way communications. New media has also affected how PR professionals engage and interact with the traditional media newsman especially with those who blog. Immediate access to newsperson blogs allow for tracking of reporter interests and beats and this information leads to a more familiar, personalized dialogue in comparison to the traditional pitch. As more new media tools and techniques emerge, the public relations profession will continue to shift and incorporate the new practices. In the meantime, although new media requires more resources in terms of time, if offers more tools to expand reach of messages and programs.ReferencesAronson, M, Spetner, D and Ames, C. (2007). The Public Relations Writers Handbook The digital Age.Breakenrid ge, D. (2008). PR 2.0 New media, new tools, new audiences.Fitch, K. 2009. New Media and Public Relations in Chia, J. and Synnott, G. An Introduction to Public Relations.Gogoi, P. (2006, October 9). Wal-Marts Jim and Laura The real story. BusinessWeek. Retrieved from http//www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061009_579137.htm?campaign_id=rss_innovateGregory, A. (2004). electron orbit and structure of public relations A technology driven view. Public Relations Review, 30, 245-254.Macky, M. (2011). Corporate Communication & The New MediaTheaker, A. (2008). The public relations handbook. Chapter 20 Using New Technology Effectively in PR