Can PROs Have Too Much Information?

Last week PRWeek held their latest PR and The Media conference and one of the hot topics up for discussion was the monitoring and evaluation of new media and whether or not it is possible to truly evaluate what is being said about a brand.

This made me think as to when does a lot of information become too much information?

In this media controlled environment in which we operate can we truly monitor and evaluate every website, blog, podcast, newspaper, television programme etc that mentions a client's brand? With the number of blogs in existence now reaching the 70 million mark is it worth our while to spend a large proportion of a budget on monitoring and evaluating? According to Lorna Perrin, head of comms at fashion label French Connection the money is better spent on market research (Magee, Kate, 9th March 2007, "Information Overload" PRWeek) and I think I agree. If the initial research is conducted to a high standard and accurately reflects the target market then the campaign, in theory, should be a success.

I am aware that ignoring monitoring and evaluation is completely ridiculous but it is my opinion that it is time to focus on the important media rather than every random 'new media' that raises its head.

Let me know what you think.

Debz

Web 2.0?

Apparently you learn something new everyday. I am unsure if this statement is true but I do know that I definitely did learn something on Tuesday 13th March at around 9.30am. It was at this time that I first heard of a concept alien to my ears.... 'Web 2.0'.

Since that fateful day I have been reading up on the concept mainly in the form of articles in PR Week and blogs wrote by Tim O'Reilly. I realise that I might be a bit slow with regards to picking up on this concept considering a posting by O'Reilly dates back to 2005 and he believes that it originated as far back as the dotcom crash of 2001.

I hold the opinion that Web2.0 is simply a new business buzz word which will fade into the distance, however the concept behind it will remain and continue to grow in momentum but as a young ambitious PR student should I be ignoring all of what I have been taught in the past 5 years about segmenting markets, stakeholder analysis, target messages etc etc?

According to Ashley Carr, MD of the ITPR group, (Carr, Ashley; 23rd February 2007, "...and blogs have yet to be proven PR-wise" PR Week, pp19) if blogs do not support an existing strategy, do not complicate things because as yet this is an unproven tactic. This is my belief with the entirety of Web 2.0, the usefulness and success rate of the majority of the components of this concept are yet to be measured and proven and should therefore not be relied on. This is backed up by the recent survey conducted by KPMG which illustrated 72% of 3000 people interviewed still use television and newspapers as their primary source of news. (Houlgate, Gavin; 9 March 2007, "Don't rush into a new media trap" PR Week, pp 16).

I am fully aware that I will have to swot up on the new media available to PROs however I do not think the time has come to start throwing away all of my textbooks and notes and begin ignoring all that I have been taught.

As a final note I would encourage all universities teaching marketing and public relations related courses to find a way to educate their students on emerging media formats as if it was not for the technology elective I am studying then I would never have heard of these new emerging concepts even after studying marketing at a highly accredited university for 4 years.

Debz

The links below will hopefully be of use to anyone reading this.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
www.prweek.com/uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2

Bebo: good or bad?

I recently read a post regarding the dangers surrounding the use of Bebo and it made me think about the use of the site in connection to Pr and branding.

Recently many entertainment venues have jumped on the Bebo band waggon as a way of interacting with its customers however when browzing though I noticed that this may not be as effective as first thought and in fact could have an adverse effect.

When reading the comments posted it gives one a good idea of the clientel a place attracts which in some cases is not beneficial as these people are not always the most desirable which can damage the brand's reputation.

By constantly bombarding "bebo friends" with updates on upcoming events, brands run the risk of overloading consumers with advertisements resulting in poeple being fed up with a brand before ever trying it.

These are only a few points on the subjcet I would be interested in hearing other people's views on the damage social networking homepages can have on a brand without the organisation even realising it.

Deborah


see http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/0305/why-bebo-is-in-for-a-whirl-of-negative-publicity/