Last month a client of ours, in the online publishing space, was complaining about staff spending time on Orkut while in office. He wanted this to stop…

We recommended, as part of our strategy, that it be made a part of the KRA for the team to spend time – every day- on not just Orkut but on other social networking and book-marking sites – participating & gaining insights from conversations they pick up; creating, managing relevant & synergetic communities.

The initial shock from both parties however led to quick adoption and whilst deployment of many of our suggestions is still pending, on account of technology enablement, traffic and search ratings for the site are already up and motivating the team to adopt this new form of outreach.

It is a completely new environment out there with social media, technology enablement is making the world flat, giving smaller players the ability to match bigger competitors with nimble outreach initiatives; big players too in-turn have the ability to reach a much larger global audiences (as do the smaller players for that matter) with their messages. Most of these tools are free so the focus is on skills and not on money.

Public relations is arguably the most dynamic of all communication tools and the new environment consolidates its position on that count some more. For communication professionals it means an opportunity to earn the client’s respect by making business impact. It truly puts public relations in the center of the client’s 360 degree initiatives.

So where do we begin?

1. We are all on social networking sites, aren’t we? Well, let’s begin from there – try and find communities dedicated to your client’s brand

• How big are they?
• Who are the people talking about your brand/s? What seem to be the demographic and psychographic profiles of these people?
• What are they saying about the brand? Positive and negative both have value
• Go make sense of it

2. Are you tracking the blogosphere for mentions of your client’s brand/s yet?

• Try Technorati and Google’s blog search, to begin with

3. Planning to suggest your client to set up a blog?

• Have you established a need first?
• What is the ‘real need’ – remember a blog is just a tool
• What is the competition doing?

4. Try submitting your press release to an online wire agency

• Many of them are free

5. Get your hands dirty- create a blog for yourself

• Nothing teaches you the game better than actually doing it
• You can create a blog for free at Wordpress and Blogger
• Still thinking if you should? Remember your blog also works as your resume too

Have questions? Write in at rajesh.lalwani@blogworks.in

By Rajesh Lalwani.

(Rajesh is a marketing communication professional, presently based out of New Delhi, India.He has helped brands and corporates manage & enhance their reputation by building effective messaging and strategy and has worked with some of the best media, entertainment and communication companies in India managing some of the most prominent global brands. Rajesh has a keen interest in emergent communication including word of mouth, blogs and his new offering Blog\Works delivers strategic social media know-how to brands & corporates.)

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