In the previous article "How to Make Social News Release", possible methodologies of making social news release were introduced. The topic of this article is how PR activities needs to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world leveraging the social news releases, to make it the ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world.

1. What is the essence of PR activities in Web 2.0 online world?

In short, it is to adopt marketing approach. In order to succeed in PR with new rule of marketing, PR and IR as mentioned in the previous article Vol.7 - The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World to effectively reaching directly to bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists, marketing approach is vital. This means adopting marketing concept/framework of segmentation, targeting, value proposition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), AID(M)A (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, Action), LTV (Life Time Value) of customers (buyers), Pareto Law and ROI (Return on Investment) or marketing to name a few. This can be said as another aspect of convergence of marketing and PR.

2. How PR activities should be performed in web 2.0 online world?

From the author's experience, possible methodologies of effectively performing PR activities leveraging social news releases and converging with marketing are as below.

1) Send/distribute social news release whenever there are good reasons to do so, not only when big news and events are present.

In the web 2.0/Internet world, successful PR activities of companies and other organizations is frequent sending of news releases in the framework of total story of the company/organization. This is because PR activities in the web 2.0/Internet online world, PR needs to target all web users including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers, information are now usually updated frequently leveraging the characteristics of the Internet mentioned in the previous article Vol.8 - How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing and now and web users are used to frequent updating of information on the web.

Each news release targeting every web user is in effective (as in principle in marketing that communication targeting everyone does not meet customer needs and ineffective), and therefore each of them needs to be made and distributed with careful segmentation, positioning and targeting in market-in approach. This is a different approach from traditional PR in offline world in which news release was made and sent only when there are big news and events to journalists and media exclusively, in product-out approach. Strategy, value proposition/offering, story telling (scenario building), and optimization of each news release in total framework are required for the new approach.

2) Broadcast news release and other PR information leveraging social ecosystem.

It is ideal for PR representatives to leverage social ecosystem introduced in the previous article Vol.5 - What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? and broadcast social news releases and other PR information online such as podcasts and blogs, as some leading companies are already doing. In traditional PR in offline world, news release was faxed to journalists and/or distributed in publicity and press conferences and posted on the company website (in news release section) when Internet emerged. In web 2.0 online world, it is ideal to leverage social ecosystem (social media) to broadcast targeting all web users. This would trigger successful viral marketing.

Some tactics include starting official company Twitter and Facebook account and broadcast by such social media vehicles, and proactively distributing and introducing in e-newsletter, to name a few, with the objective of drawing attention and interest the first "A" and "I" of AID(M)A at the driving point of the persuasion scenario explained in the previous article Vol.13 - How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?.

In addition, when sending social news releases and other PR information to journalists and bloggers, it is often effective to segment and target with cover letter and additional document tailoring to respective target to meet their respective needs with one-to-one marketing approach.

3) Engage bloggers and other influencers in the web 2.0/Internet world as well as traditional journalists by interactive conversation online.

Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives interacted exclusively with journalists and media, PR representatives need to reach proactively interact with influential bloggers as well as traditional journalists to win their engagement. This would mean companies/organizations to open the door to inviting influential bloggers to publicity and press conferences as well as interacting on regular basis in the future.

Expanding target to influential bloggers and managing all targets effectively is a challenge. It requires careful screening selection and retention of targets, similarly to cultivating, selecting and retaining loyal customers in marketing with Pareto Law for successful CRM leading to maximization of customer (buyer) LTV and ROI. Such topics as online engagement and social media ROI, as well as viral and one-to-one marketing, deserve further discussion, and the author would like to do so in one of the upcoming articles.

4) Leverage social media vehicles to perform public hearing and monitoring.

Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives communicated one-way sending out news release only, PR representatives in web 2.0 online world need to leverage social media ecosystem for effective public hearing and monitoring.

Traditionally, PR representatives used to monitor their PR activities only by clipping of news and magazine coverage and how and when information on their company/organization went on the air on TV and radio news/programmes. However, with emergence and popularization of the Internet, online coverage (e.g. online news) has been under monitoring in many companies. And with the emergence and popularization of social media, PR representatives (and marketers) need to monitor the reputation of their company/organization i.e. what the general public talks about their company/organization in social media world. To do so, they need to monitor major social media vehicles such as news sites (e.g. Digg), major blogs (e.g. Marshable), microblogging (e.g. Twitter), audio/video podcast (e.g. YouTube) and social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) as well, as some leading companies already does now.

Public hearing and monitoring leveraging social media helps PR representatives better understanding the needs of online audiences including journalists, media, bloggers and the general public (prospects and buyers). Input from such hearing and monitoring contributes to planning and execution of market-in PR instead of traditional product-in PR.

In addition, it is ideal for PR representatives or other members assigned to proactively participate in social media/online communities, by interactive conversation, to positively influence reputation of the company/organization.

Having briefly discussed ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world, the author would like to touch on how such PR activities are influencing or could influence journalists and media, primary stakeholder of PR representatives in the next article.