Grayling Blog

Piecing together the jigsaw of online communications

Posted on 12.04.2010 by Adrian Elliot

Internet has put PR consultancies to the test in recent years due to its ability to transform the relationships that companies and institutions have with their stakeholders. Information is no longer controlled by a single individual or entity. Instead, users share it at their own will via an ever growing variety of channels and decide for themselves what is useful to them and what can safely be discarded. All of a sudden those diagrams we would use in client proposals distinguishing our end audiences from our ‘instrumental audiences’ (i.e. the media) need to be rejigged due to the increased number of opportunities to cut out the messenger and communicate directly with potential consumers.

Information travels at lightening speed and no sooner is a new product launched than we have to demonstrate the results of our campaigns measured in terms of increased sales. The savviest consumers are capable of analysing and reviewing new services at the touch of a button, potentially making or breaking their chances of success in the wider market.

Getting to grips with this reality and adapting our strategies to the new landscape has been exhilarating, especially since the environment continues to change beneath our feet. The end of history, at least in Internet terms, is still nowhere in sight and now just as we have got used to communicating with bloggers and positioning our clients in social networks, the mobile web has sprung into view providing even more opportunities for winning over the hearts of consumers together with all the associated risks. Bluecasting, i.e. the use of Bluetooth technology to inform mobile users in real time of events or products available in their proximity, is set to once again transform the way companies market their products and services. What a difference it would make to our high streets (and how much money companies would save in wasted paper in the form of flyers) if as we walked past a restaurant a text message appeared on our mobile phone offering us a 20% discount on our weekday lunch or a free copy of the daily newspaper with our sandwich and soft drink.

The line that separates marketing, advertising and PR could blur even more. Yet as with everything on such a democratic medium as the Internet, consumers will find an increasing number of ways to balance the hype through objective opinion. Consider that instead of receiving a marketing message from the shops or entertainment venues we walk by, we receive the corresponding reviews from Time Out together with the opinions of countless Internet users on the quality of their Hawaiian Pizza or the virtues of the latest Woody Allen film. Clearly it will continue to be important to ensure that informed advocates have all the necessary information at their disposal to be able to develop and distribute an objective opinion on the matter.

At a moment in which the opportunities for communicating with consumers have become so broad, the channels so varied, so fragmented and yet at the same time so interconnected, surely companies need more professional advice than ever on where they need to be in the online and mobile ecosystem, who they need to take notice of and which opinion formers can make or break their reputation. Navigating this brave new digital world is no task for the weak hearted. In fact this provides the ideal opportunity for experienced consultancies to apply their experience in all the different areas of PR to the new requirements of an altogether different communications environment. The key to success, as with everything online, is understanding that there is no magic formula and that what works today may require an entirely different strategy in six months time. This is precisely what makes our profession so stimulating.