Know Your Audience - the Public

In my last post, “A 1.0 World versus a 2.0 World”, I mentioned that a 2.0 World is not just about the web. In fact, a 2.0 World includes communications, journalism and public relations - among others.

At the Communications Workshop I attended a few weeks ago, Ira Basen of CBC stated that “public relations used to be about media relations, but in a 2.0 World public relations is in fact about public relations”. Made possible by vehicles such as blogs, social networking sites and websites like nowpublic.com, a 2.0 World gives everyone the ability to post content, express their opinion and communicate.

Prior to publishing tools such a blogs, public relations was about communicating and getting your message out to the media. The media then decided if your content was newsworthy and if your content would be published or not.

Today, public relations is about communicating with the public. News releases, company successes and even company failures are posted online and accessible to everyone. Company blogs (like ours!) and even news sites like CNN or CBC, have the capability for the public to post comments. This ability to continue a discussion and post comments is often thought to be a negative and often challenging concept – what do you think?

In my opinion blogging and creating conversation is a positive experience. Times are changing and the way we communicate is too. I think that as professionals in a 2.0 World, we need to roll with the times and recognize that “public relations is in fact about public relations”. We need to use the vast array of communication vehicles available to us, to properly communicate with our audience.

So whether you're communicating through a news release, social media, your company website or blog, it's important to understand that communication tool and use it to connect with your number one audience - the public.