e-PR: Not merely doing it online

By Aleta Hanafi and Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): If there's something strange in your neighborhood, it's time to call in the ghostbusters. If your company is under fire, who're you gonna call?

For instance, if your company's employees go on strike to demand better salaries and benefits, or if news leaks to the media that one of the directors has swindled a large sum of cash from the company's coffers, or if environmentalists are accusing your company of polluting the sky, who should immediately jump into action? During crises like these, the public relations manager will be the first one to lose sleep.

As a PR manager at a leading palm oil producer in Indonesia recently admitted, the PR functions in most local companies are generally limited to fighting "brush fires".

This is reflected in the way most organizations are structured.

"Because my tasks are mainly to answer the questions asked by the press, to browse all the newspapers and magazines every day to check whether there is any news about our company, and to prepare the annual report, I do not really have a direct line of communication to the board of directors," he said.

Only when a crisis appears to be getting out of control is he able to communicate directly with the board.

Indeed, PR seems to mean different things to different people. In a lot of companies, PR is also part of sales and marketing efforts, which actually reduces its original function to simply persuading prospective customers to buy their products and services.

Still, the profession seems to continue to attract more and more people.

In the U.S., for example, the Department of Labor has projected that the "employment of public relations specialists is expected to increase faster than the average occupation through to the year 2006".

Interestingly, one does not really have to be trained in communication schools to become a PR specialist. Every day we meet PR managers who come from various backgrounds, ranging from secretaries to engineers.

It certainly requires a lot of traits to become a successful PR manager, though, with a high level of intelligence, a willingness to learn as well as good communication skills being key ingredients.

What is PR, actually?

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) adopted a brief definition in 1998 that says: "Public relations helps an organization and its public adapt mutually to each other."

In their book Strategic Public Relations Counseling, Norman R. Nager and Richard H. Truitt define public relations as a planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its public.

Given such a broad scope of PR responsibilities, it is not surprising to learn that companies have long outsourced their PR needs to independent PR companies.

This has led to the emergence of local as well as international PR companies. We now have global PR companies such as APCO Worldwide, Burson Marsteller, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Porter Novelli International and Weber Shandwick Worldwide.

Again, PR companies are viewed differently by different people. Some client companies see PR companies as merely event organizers, while others rely completely on PR agencies to handle their entire PR requirements, from strategy to implementation.

PR activities are not limited to businesses alone. Governments, political parties, nonprofit organizations, charity institutions -- all should have a good PR manager to really succeed.

Enter the "e-"

After the Internet became commonplace and the "e-" was added to all sorts of business activities, it was no surprise to hear people increasingly use the new term e-PR.

Mat Haigg, for example, even wrote a book titled e-PR, the Essential Guide to Public Relations on the Internet. (If you are interested, you can read a review of this book at www.websearchworkshop.co.uk/reviewepr.htm).

Our question would then be whether e-PR is simply conventional PR activities transported onto the Internet?

In a lot of ways, e-PR is not much more than putting conventional campaigns online. However, the new capabilities -- and speed -- that information technology, especially the Web, has at the same time expanded the scope of PR activities.

Today, we would automatically expect every bona fide company to have its own website, where we can browse its PR materials.

Press releases, success stories, new product announcements, the latest product catalogs and even product reviews in various publications are generally available on a company's homepage, so that everyone -- journalists in particular -- can access it at any time from anywhere. However, certainly this is not all that e-PR is about.

An interesting, real life example of e-PR activity might be what Victoria's Secret, a well-known lingerie shop based in the U.S., did last year.

During the Super Bowl, Victoria's Secret announced the schedule of its "Online Live Lingerie Show".

A lot of people -- especially men -- saw the announcement. During the online show they flocked to the website and caused a major Web traffic jam.

Victoria's Secret successfully received the maximum impact for its publicity by reaching its targeted audience through the right medium.

e-PR is not only about creating images like PR normally does through conventional media, it also provides powerful tools for publicity, creates enormous databases, distributes PR materials globally and at the same time conducts market intelligence surveys.

Take PR Newswire, for example. This company relies on the speed at which information flows on the Internet and the huge database that it has collected to provide a comprehensive range of communication services to PR and investor relations professionals.

It does not only distribute press releases in the textual form that we are familiar with, it also sends out video, audio and photos to the public, including journalists, investors and consumers. It is no secret that a lot of media across the world get their news from press releases fed by PR Newswire. As an additional service offered by this company, organizations of any type can also outsource the development of their websites to them.

Take Think PR is another example of an e-PR company that would not have been really possible without the help of the Internet. This UK-based company provides a specialized service in writing press releases. You provide the company with as much information as you can, including a web address where it can obtain further information, and within two days it will have cooked a professional press release for you. All is done online!

Clearly, on the side of PR service providers, the Internet provides a broader range of opportunities.

With the speed of the Internet, the ability of computers to collect, manage and use huge amounts of data, and some creative thinking, you can start a variety of e-PR services that people may not have thought of, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And, with dot-com companies still trying to make their presence known or to survive on the Internet, it is the right time to come up with innovative e-PR services.

The Internet is a jungle of information, and companies require effective ways to draw the public's attention to them. e-PR can help them.

On the side of the clients, however, e-PR may have expanded a company's PR capabilities, yet all the new tools and capabilities will mean very little if your company does not have real value to offer the public.

Zatni Arbi is an IT observer and regular contributor to The Jakarta Post. Aleta Hanafi is a PR associate consultant at Ogilvy, Jakarta.