Winning the Web

How should the PR industry react to the overwhelming power of the internet search engine? Embrace ‘Google Relations’ and adapt, or face extinction, says Stephen Waddington, managing director of Rainier PR.

Back in the early 1970s, Paul McCartney penned these words: “And if this ever-changing world in which we live in makes you give in and cry – say live and let die.”

This James Bond theme tune may as well be tweaked about the PR industry and the internet search engine, to “live, or let die”. A tenuous connection, maybe, but one that holds water. Many PR people seem to be at a loss as to how to embrace the power of the internet, giving rise to a new expression in US PR circles – GR – Google Relations.

A great skill in PR is controlling the news. The best PR often keeps his or her company out of the news rather than getting them in it. However, the internet has opened a Pandora’s box and wrestled control from PR’s hands. Who can regulate staff blogging or the chatroom rumour mill? Add to this the wider mediums with which target audiences will source their information and you have the perfect recipe for anarchy.

PR, like the world through that Guinness advert in reverse, is fast evolving. Twenty years ago we sent press releases by fax. Ten years ago we had big Nokia bricks attached to our ears and struggled with dial-up internet connections. Now, we face the anarchy of the search engine.

Call off the search

Many of us will have Google alerts, or other similar news alerts, set up for our company, meaning that the instant something appears online with our organisation’s name attached we will hear about it. And so will the rest of the world. This content is not always released by the company in question either.

The worrying thing is that journalists are turning to internet search engines and RSS feeds more and more as the primary source of information on industries and players. If the leading items on the search list are negative stories, or disgruntled former employees blogging their revenge from dark and lonely attics, then that’s frankly bad for business.

Even positive blogs drafted by staff or customers can constitute uncontrolled messaging. They may let pieces of information out that are not cleared by the PR department – the name of a sensitive customer or the details of a confidential programme, for example.

So, how can PRs reclaim control in this digital civil war and make Google Relations another controlled part of Public Relations?

Take the power back

PRs need to ensure that their client or organisation has positive news receiving regular hits from unique visitors at the very top of the most popular search engines. To do this, PRs need to play the internet at its own game.

The first step is to analyse your company or client, see where the source of most of its web hits are coming from – how many are ‘officially-generated’ and how many are from uncontrolled sources. The internet search engine is a numbers game, so getting new content online is critical to ‘drowning out’ unofficial references to your client or organisation.

For the best way to guarantee great web hits, PRs need to engage in search engine optimisation (SEO), a technique that can result with your web site being near the top of any search engine results page when a particular key term has been searched for. In a public relations context, Search Engine Optimisation can benefit brand building strategies and sales targets by driving quality traffic to your site. You can read more about it here.

Engaging new media, like YouTube and MySpace, to get the word out there is critical. A thoughtfully generated viral could lead to thousands of welcome hits and a rise up the rankings. It’ll provide a short-lived way of hitting the top of the list but should be considered as part of a programme of consistent content provision.

A steady stream

The shelf life of a radio or TV interview is typically hours; daily print media, maybe a day or two; and weekly and monthly magazines may be filed, but are typically discarded after a month or so.

However, search engines provide a mechanism to dig out online content years after it was published. They provide a focussed window on content on the web whether it is a blog, online media or traditional print media where an archive is maintained online.

Therefore, keeping new, exciting content on tap is essential. The bigger the organisation the more regularly you should be posting web content. Press releases, articles, blogs, white papers, virals - they’re all part of the 21st century PR strategy. It’s not all about print media anymore. With so many channels with dwindling audiences the value of a TV interview can also sometimes be questioned, but with an audience of potential billions out there, the internet – used wisely – can be kingmaker.

Have you ever thought about advertising on the web? Three quarters of web users use search engines regularly and 64 per cent use search engines as the primary method of finding specific web sites. Having a pop-up could be a major pull (or really annoy you).

Web advertising has come through the dark days when it was viewed with suspicion and now more is spent marketing through the web than through the original networked medium, radio.

Conclusion

Rainier PR now has some clients whose key objective is to get into and stay in the top 10 of the main search engines.

As with many things, the internet presents both a threat and an opportunity. Those who embrace it and play to its strengths will see the greatest returns, with positive stories and sales generated through increased search engine traffic. The choice is yours. Live, or let die?