Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World

How Web 2.0 is shaping marketing and other activities can be discussed from various aspects. After having read some resources and thought about this, the author decided to start with clarifying new rules in Web 2.0 online world, comparing with the old rules in the offline world. Following the previous article of “What is the Overview of Web 2.0 Online World?” in which the discussion was focused on marketing, this article will also focus on marketing plus PR and IR, which is the cousin of PR because of the new rule #1.

1. Old Rules in Offline World Before the Emergence of the Internet
Scott (2009, p8 & p12) lists the old rules of marketing and PR. The below are summary of the rules mentioned by Scott.

1) The Old Rules of Marketing
(1)Marketing simply meant advertising (and branding), appealing to the masses.
(2)Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message, which was exclusively about selling products.
(3)Advertising was one-way: company-to-consumer, based on campaigns with limited life.
(4)Creativity was deemed the most important factor of advertising, and ad agency winning advertising award was more important than client winning new customers.
(5)Marketing (advertising) and PR were separate disciplines run by different people with different goals, strategies and measurement criteria.

2) The Old Rules of PR
(1)Media was the only channel for PR and companies communicated to journalists via press releases, so actual press release was seen by only limited reports and editors and customers (buyers/consumers) would learn about the press release content only if the media wrote an article about it.
(2)Companies needed significant news to write a press release (thus PR was done only on big event basis).
(3)Jargon was accepted because the journalists all understood it but press release had to include quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysis and experts.
(4)The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through “clip books”.
(5)PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with different goals, strategies and measurement criteria.

IR is out of scope of Scott’s book, but to the author, many old rules of PR also apply to IR, the cousin of PR although there may be some IR specific rules.

2. New Rules in Web 2.0 Online World
In contrast to the above old rules, the new rules can be summarized as below.

1) Marketing, PR (and IR) is converging.
In the offline world, marketing, PR and IR were all separate; separate strategy developed and implemented by separate departments with different people/skills. However, in the online world, the line between traditional marketing, PR and IR is blurring. This is because of the rules that follow this first rule.

2) Marketing is not simply advertising.
In the online world of Web 2.0, marketing is about delivering customer-centric content at the precise moment when the customer (audience) needs it. Marketing is also about reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the web based on long-tail theory* instead of mainstream marketing or reaching of the mass. This is why personalization and customization encouraged by Web 2.0 is a key in success online business. After all, marketing is, as Scott (2007, p26) states, not about winning awards but is about the organization winning business.

3) PR and IR are not only for a mainstream media audience.
In Web 2.0 online world, PR and IR are for all web users. PR and IR are about customers = purchasers/people who benefit from their products and services seeing and effectively utilizing information of the company and products online. This means that, as Scott states, “The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost focus on media” (2007, p26). This is basically the same for IR as well.

4) Companies are to reach online consumers directly.
With new media channels of Internet/web, companies can and should reach consumers directly in the form the customers appreciate for those particular contents (e.g. blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and all other online content format). The fact that companies are to directly reach customers means that companies need to drive people into purchasing (or any other action the company intends such as making subscription, making investment and donation etc.) process with appealing online content. This means that content is the most important factor. Safko and Brake advocate this using the phrase “content is the king” (2009) throughout their book.

5) With a good content, everyone can be and is a publisher.
As long as an individual has a good, appealing content, he/she can publish it online without HTML knowledge. This means that companies and individuals can be more flexible in delivering information online, which, together with the rule #4 i.e. that companies are to reach directly to customers, means that companies need to act on frequent basis instead of only on a big event basis as in offline world. This rule also implies that it is possible for many “trivial” and “unreliable” information to proliferate, and this is what Scott means by “people want authenticity, not spin” (2007, p25). In addition, this rule also indicates that voice of an individual can become louder and more influential than voice of an organization. Also, the risk of social media exists whether people participate or not, and this is why many companies are developing social media guidelines and training their employees, as Ross (2009) states.

6) Marketing, PR and IR are interactive communication.
In Web 2.0 online world, marketing, PR and IR are not one-way communication/interruption but interactive communication, attributing to interactivity of the Internet. This means that conversation with the customers is extremely important. Together with rule #5 that everyone (including individuals of customers) can be a publisher, companies need to encourage customers to participate and not propaganda to win their engagement.

Reaching buyers (customers) directly, the key factor in Web 2.0 online world, will be discussed in the next article.


References:-

Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Ross, Joshua-Michele (2009), A Corporate Guide For Social Media
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/30/social-media-guidelines-intelligent-technology-oreilly.html

Scoopdog (2009), Tweet or Trouble: 2.0 Investor Relations
http://scoopdog.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/ir2-0-social-media-for-information-equality/