Left behind? No!

As our “New media” team gave the group presentation last week, we answered the question: has PR left behind by new media?

The answer is: No.

Even in the pitch of our online PR campaign on new media module, we still considered how to combined new media options with tradition media.

Thanks for Reuven’s great lectures and my lovely classmates’ fabulous performance (especially the brainstorm section) in the past classes.

Since our last class will be in the second life, the virtual world, I would like add some additional details to our group presentation. This is the text for my podcast assignment and the last reflective log as well.

The PR industry has not been slow to adapt the new media options.

With the emergence of new media, some people may say that ‘the PR industry has been slow to adapt the new media options’.

Different thinkers have taken almost completely opposite views about this. Some hold the opinion that the PR industry is being forced to adapt to new media slowly. Others, however, take a very different position. They argue that PR practitioners embraced new media a long time ago and understand the changing dynamics.

Well, who is right in this debate? I tend to agree with the second opinion.

The level of PR professionals in new media today is much higher than it ever was before, and involves a much wider range of practical skills and services.

First of all, I would like to see new media or social media as opportunities rather than threats in the quest to manage, improve or protect a company or brand reputation.

New media offer PR new business opportunities. Advantages for PR practitioners include the convenience and accessibility of online media, plus the many options available to monitor public trends. In these ways, PR firms charge clients for additional services. New media is a very good add-on business in the PR world.

Furthermore, I believe that the PR industry is exploring the new media rather than simply adapt to its options.The nature of Public relations is about communications, and the PR industry is considered as a deliberate and creative industry. In fact, the PR industry learns to quickly adapt to change, typically faster than other traditional industries.

PR industry has explored the use of new media in many combinations since its birth. It also connected new media and itself, and the fact that the global PR industry is booming is evidence of fast adaptation.

Secondly, PR practitioners grow up with new media together, and also develop new media.

It is already a very common thing that PR practitioners and PR firms use new media tools such as the Web, Podcasts, Rss, Social Networking etc. to enhance the value of PR campaigns. For example, some PR agencies like Text100 have opened their 30th office in the virtual world “The Second Life” in 2006.

Thirdly, the research and education of new media in the PR industry have never stopped.

If you search for “PR and new media” in Google, you will get 22,500,000 results. Today, besides crisis management and reputation management, digital media relations and grassroots PR have become new specialties within the field of public relations as well.

PR education already includes online PR such as writing online press release and creating PR campaigns in social networking. PRWeek, the leading weekly magazine in the PR industry, introduced a technology news page on their websites in 2006.

These facts all prove the new media rise in the PR industry.

There is no doubt that the new media is becoming increasingly important in the PR world, affecting almost every aspect of PR practitioners’ live.

For better or worse, we are being propelled into a new order that maybe no one fully understands, but I believe that the PR industry has not been left behind the new media waves, and new media is generating growth within the PR industry itself.