PR to PR 2.0

According to Tymson & Lazar (2006) a public can be defined as any individual or group who can have an affect on the overall business of an organisation and/or affect its strategic objectives. In other terms, a public can be any stakeholder of an organisation, and often in each PR campaign there are multiple target publics that need to be identified (Wilcox & Cameron, 2009).It is therefore obvious that publics are pivotal to the success of any organisation.

In our studies we have always been taught, that public relations is about building a relationship with our target publics, through a two-way communication model that will encourage dialogue between the organisation and its desired public, these models relied on the dissemination of information’s and feedback from the public. But have these models passed their expiration dates as communication moves from “mass communication” to “social media communication?” Solis states, that “somewhere along the way, we, as an industry, lost our vision. We got caught up in hype, spin, hyperbole, and buzzwords, and forgot that PR was about Public Relations.” (2008, 28 April).

Solis (2008, 28 April) coined the term PR 2.0 in the 1990’s to describe the change that has, and is continuing to occur with the development of the World Wide Web. Solis suggests that PR 2.0 is everything that public relations should have been. PR 2.0 is opening the communication between organisation and consumer, allowing the consumer to be the influencer, and allowing the organisation to communicate with them directly rather than through the gatekeepers (Solis, 2008, 28 April).

Of course there is no need to completely bin, old PR practices (if that is what we can all it), there needs to be a convergence, where PR meets PR 2.0. In a blog posted by Breakenridge, she expresses this need in stating that, “you don’t have to abandon what’s working in the traditional realm to engage in social communities”(2010, 26 March) but in combining the two maybe we as practitioners can build stronger relations for our organisations and publics?

Bianca Agius

Breakenridge, D. (2010, 26 March) Traditional PR meets PR2.0. Accessed 7/04/10 from http://www.deirdrebreakenridge.com/2010/03/traditional-pr-meets-pr-2-0

Solis, B (2008, 28 April) PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations. Accessed 7/04/2010 from http://www.briansolis.com/2008/04/pr-20-putting-public-back-in-public/

Tymson & Lazar (2006) The Australian and New Zealand public relations manual. Australia: Millennium

Wilcox, D & Cameron G (2009) Public relations: Strategies and tactics (9th Ed) USA: Pearson