Public Relations: Transparency through the Internet

Transparency is an essential public relations tactic that over recent years has become easier for companies to use in order to boost their reputation. This is all thanks to the availability and use of the Internet. The use of the Internet within companies has allowed them to demonstrate their level of transparency to a wider audience of people. “Transparency…implies openness, communication and accountability.” (Phillips, 2009, pp38).  This is what assists in the thought process of a company’s publics when they are deciding if they will use a particular company’s services because an open company is less likely to give out false information.  By publishing all of their documents regarding the operations of the company online and allowing for this abundance of information to be reachable by both their competitors as well as their customers, gives the impression that the business has nothing to hide and is operating in an ethical way. The internet allows this to happen at a small cost for a company, paying for their website and website staff, rather than having the cost of printing out all of these lengthy documents and then posting them to their multiple stakeholders.

“A full communication strategy must include an interactive engagement with your audience.” (Public Relations Tactics journal, 2013) Companies can communicate with their publics in an easier way now, credited to the Internet. Through channels such as emailing, contact through a company’s website and social media accounts is how this two-way communication occurs. According to the Public Relations Handbook public relations is making efforts to humanise the Internet in ways that allow two-way communication to be more coherent. An example of this is being done with the media, such as newspapers also operating online and allowing for users reading this information to comment in response to articles and have debates with their fellow members of the public. When companies allow both negative and positive reviews of their content to be shown on their website it reiterates the transparency of that company, proving that they are not hiding the fact that some of their audience may disagree with them. By not deleting these negative comments or reviews their publics feel their views are accepted and that something may be done to improve them.

Transparency encourages companies to be accountable for their actions. If they are operating in either a respectable way or a non-respectable way this information will come out whether the company plans for it or not. By being transparent it encourages the company to operate in a way their public’s would be comfortable with and wish to support. The New PR (2007) states that corporate transparency is achieved through richness and reach. Reach being the audience and how they are able to locate a company’s information and richness being the content that the audience is able to view. The Internet has truly allowed for companies to prove their richness, reach a wider audience and use their transparency as a successful public relations tactic.

Bibliography

Phillips, D (2007). Defining transparency: richness and reach. The New PR Wiki. Available at: [http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=DefiningTransparency.RichnessandReach ]

 

Philips, D (2009) Online Public Relations: A Practical Guide to Developing an Online Strategy in the World of Social Media. London: Kogan Page

 

Sibilia, J (2013) 5 CSR Reporting Guidelines for PR Professionals. Public Relations Tactics; Vol. 12 Issue 5, p15

Theaker, A (2004) The Public Relations Handbook (2^nd ed) London: Routledge

Public Relations Presence in Social Media

Public relations practitioners have seen the impact of social media for a company and the importance it has as a channel of communication. (Phillips, 2009, p33) Social media are online mediums in which companies and consumers are able to communicate, or socialise online, with one another. Traditional styles of communication such as information in print were a lot slower and due to social soon as something has happened or if news needs to be released. Through having a social media account such as Facebook or Twitter, publics are able to follow these business’s accounts and receive updates as soon as they happen.

A new age important public relations tactic is running a social media account. Accounts such as these allow their publics to remain updated on new things happening in a company and also give their feedback. Al-Deen and Hendricks state “if utilized with forethought, Twitter can be a valuable and useful resource in the social media stratosphere.” This medium of social media is ideal for shorter messages to be sent out to publics such as information regarding new deals or responding to customers who contact the company in this way. An example of this is the brand Office who have their own account on twitter specifically set up to assist their customers with any queries they may have (@OFFICEshoeshelp). Through doing this it gives a very personal response to their customers and shows that they value their customers and want to make sure they have the best experience possible. Using Twitter as a way of releasing information may not always be the best public relations choice for a company because there is a restriction of 140 characters per tweet. It is essential that a company use the most effect source of social media, through blogging a company does not have a restriction on the length of a message they send out.  This would allow for a longer message, such as a press release, to be released while still allowing their audience to post comments in response and interact with the company.

Gattiker (2013) suggest that while social media is a good public relations tactic to use it must be used with a solid plan behind it, if it is created with no clear goal then it has a strong possibility to be a hindrance rather than help to a company. Any tactic that is attempted will not work without a clear direction though with social media it is sure to fail without guidance. If a company set up a social media account and their customers used it as a form of contact to discuss issues and the company didn’t have a designated member of staff running the account problems could occur. The customers would feel they were being ignored and no longer trust that company.  Social media is a brilliant way for companies to relate to their publics but it is essential they monitor it and know what their aims are through it.

 

Bibliography

 

Al-Deen, H and Hendricks, J (2012) Social Media Usage and Impact. Lexington Books: Plymouth

Gattiker, U (2013) Social Media Audit Measure for Impact. London: Springer
[online] DawsonEra
Available through https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781461436034
[Assessed: 15^th January 2014

Office Shoes (2013) www.twitter.com/OFFICEshoeshelp
Assessed on [15^th January 2014]

 

Phillips, David. (2009). Online PR: a practical way to developing an online strategy in the world of social media. 2nd Ed. CIPR. 

 

 

The Impact of the Internet on Public Relations Practice

The Internet has allowed for public relations to take off into different directions than before. Communication has stretched from mostly relying on one way, companies putting out messages and their publics receiving them, to two-way communication where their publics are able to respond to the messages that they receive. The Internet has allowed for companies to distribute large or small amounts of information immediately and for their publics to respond to this information through mediums such as social media. Key from Public Relations Tactics (2005) believes that companies are not taking full advantage of what the Internet has to offer them and instead of adapting their ways they are simply transferring how they used to do things to a new environment. It is essential as a company to keep up with the new digital age rather than just start using it. By using new strategies then public relations practitioners will be able to excel and build expand their client’s audience more efficiently. 

Before the Internet, businesses could only rely on their physical stores and stories printed by journalists in order to boost their public opinions, which was often restricted to the city or town it was located in. Due to the Internet public relations practitioners are now able to build campaigns and spread them online to reach a larger audience, getting the word out about what their clients are doing on both a national and international scale instead of purely locally. Unfortunately, according to Holtz, many public relations practitioners see the introduction of the Internet to their PR practices to be an inconvenience.( 2002, p5) This proves that while the internet has had a large impression on the public relations industry, not all practitioners are using it to the extent that is possible.  

Brown (2009) believes there is a large amount of competition in the public relations digital environment. Similarly as to the physical environment, companies are competing for customers and having a strong online presence can be beneficial. The presence of a company online is easy to measure with social media. Both consumers and competitors are able to see how many other users have ‘liked’ a company on Facebook and how many people have ‘followed’ a company on Twitter. A larger audience on the Internet allow for its users to share content easily with other consumers that would not have previously seen these company’s messages because they were not already following them. This is known as the ‘word of mouth’ on the Internet. In order for the Internet to continue improving the public relations environment it is essential that the practitioners invest more into it and apply new tactics and strategies. There is still a considerable amount of room for public relations to grow in the online world.

Bibliography

Key, R (2005) How PR Professionalism Can Flourish in this New Digital Age. Public Relations Tactics; Vol. 12 Issue 11, p.18-19

Holtz, S (2002) Public Relations on the Net: Winning Strategies to Inform and Influence the Media, the Investmet Community, the Government, the Public, and More! 2^nd ed. Amacom: New York

Brown, R (2009) Public Relations and the Social Web: How to Use Social Media and Web 2.0 in Communications. Kogan Page: London