Online Public Relations Thoughts

This is an interesting take on brand conversation, but there is one error. PR is content, not advertising. Marketers have failed time and again in carrying on brand conversations. They want to SELL. They don't want to discuss. PR understands -- or should, anyway -- that one interacts with audiences. That is part of unpaid persuasion we use as our primary tool. On the internet, people are information gatherers. They want to know more about products and services they are considering buying. They look for unbiased -- and extremely biased -- discussions. What does one love, hate? PR inserts itself naturally into that stream.

Having written that, there is a limit to what people will look up. There are categories of service and products that are commodities because of their price points and because, well, no one talks about them. I know this because I have gone to the internet to find information and it wasn't there. Perhaps that is an opportunity for a makers and providers of these products and services, but perhaps it isn't either. Most of us don't discuss the quality of common nuts, bolts and nails. We just go to a hardware store or home center and buy them.

I do agree that content must be useful, engaging and interesting. That is what we are supposed to be doing with content everyday when we work with the media.