Andrea Phiniefs

Years ago, Dave Winer said that in the future the newspaper New York Τimes will be a blog. And that’s more or less happening today. The New York Times have a lot of blogs with targeting the push and pull media. Another newspaper in USA, the Washington Ρost, created a local blog for Washington which is a town’s guide and city portal.

News now are driving by the users (push and pull media). Blogs, podcasts, vlogs everything are new media even though they did not start as news media, they adopted really fast.

PR Agencies have to change the way they work now. We live in a world that everyone can create news; the news is written again and again by the journalists and also the readers.

Furthermore, PR Agencies should face the new rules of media and to adopt the new elements which put together the readers and the journalists. The question here is how the PR Agencies will face these new media.

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One tool of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is very useful but there not much written is that of communication and PR. Because of the search engines’ popularity, the tools of SEO can be useful for the promotion of a press release or an event from public relations part.

Some tips for the improvement of Public Relations department in any organisation are

Ø      Keep the target you set in your PR program. A press release can be addressed to the journalists; however you have to keep in mind the public. The changes that you will make in the press release, for SEO, should be such in order to keep your focus on the target that has been set.

Ø      Set key-words and phrases in your relevant article. For this you can get help from the PR agency who set the communication program.

Ø      Focus on the most important elements. This will lead you to the desire increase of your web visitors who would like to read your post.

Ø      Use other network tools, like RSS feeds, Κeyword tagging, trackbacks, attachments

Ø      The term SΕΟ (search engine optimization) describes all the procedures which have to be done for the content of the webpage in order to be friendlier to the search engines.

Final goal: The highest position in the table of the net and the increase of the visitors who search in the engines with keywords which are relevant to the content of the webpage. One of the most important elements in a webpage which will give a better position in the row of the search engines is the relevancy between the keywords and the content of the webpage.

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In the annual conference of Market Research Society 2009, Joseph Webb and Bob Burgoyne published a paper with the title: ‘You ‘ve got a friend: Measuring the Value of Brand friending on Social Networks. In this paper has been described the landscape and goes someway to uncover the rules of the motivations behind successful friending and word of mouse. Friending campaigns are reliant on more variables than has been the case with more traditional forms of advertising. Whilst this may make measurement more difficult, it does not negate the possibility of doing so successfully. The study recommends a focus on the crucial enabling and empowerment processes as the first step towards the provision of key metrics in this new arena.

Social networks act as personal web pages which be linked to and viewed by friends. They allow people to undertake a range of activities including the exchange of messages, the uploading and accessing of photos, videos and music and the publishing of upcoming events. The success of a distributed computer network as a communication tool and a platform of community streches back even further than the internet itself with the creation of ARPNET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in 1968. 

Many social networks are leading players in the online world; both Facebook and Myspace are in the top 10 most popular websites. The social web is being extended as initiatives such as Googel et al’s ‘Open Social’ program aim to link separate social networks together as well as with other forms of website allowing individuals to have a single online profile on any website they visit meaning all forms of website can build communities of these individuals should they wish to do so.

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A company who wants to have a powerful image in the internet should have a good content in any form of new media (blogs, tweets, and so on) in order to attract the users of social media. The main reasons of having a good content in your webpage are:

- first, give the opportunity to the users to create links of chatting,

- second, through the different social media (Digg, Τwitter, Face book, Μy Space), the content has more readers

- third, it helps the reputation of the company

- forth, through the word-of-mouth, it multiples the audience

- and fifth, it gives higher profit.

The particular process has an important role in public relations because they have the responsibility to make a good content which will give to the company reputation. The content of the webpage can be transform to a useful tool of public relations.

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The second popular page on facebook after Barack Obama’s is the page of Coca Cola.  And it is not a page which created by the company but by two Californian fans of Coca Cola. According to the measurements of the ΑllFacebook, the number of the friends is over 3, 3 million and by week they increase to 3%.

The success of this page is opposite to the statement that the users of social media do not like to work with brands and when Coca Cola Company decided to search for this page, they tried with a friendly way to reach the creators of this page. Until there will be a logical explanation of the success of the particular page, the company will support the page and it will enjoy the success that the fans give to the soft drink.  

After the above example and other brands follow the same path, without knowing that the American company was not behind the facebook page.

Some PR agencies, who are familiar with the ‘game’ of communication of social networks, advised the companies to create through social media groups and application in order to promote their products or services.

If you search in facebook for brands you will understand the power which was developed from social media. Not only the international companies try to promote their products or services through facebook but also a lot of topic companies which look forward to an international impact. And this can be seen from the simple shops, fashion designers, sporting centres, wellness Centres, tourist companies, everyone has a part of projection through social networks and this is an achievement of public relations agencies.

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Εmails with attached files, used to contain a simple article or pages html, where you could find more information for further research. Then another tool created for instance you could use pictures related with your product or company. The content of these emails was written by public relations consultants. And this was a result of the new multimedia ‘world’ where you can enclose in your email with new creative tools, for example videos with a lot of information about the particular product.  

In a multimedia email, which takes the figure of a webpage, you can find videos and pictures of the product, and usually the video plays automatically when you read the email.  The dimension of the projection is low and has not a high analysis or qualitative sound.

How it works? The process is really simple. The client receives the email with a subject relevant to the content which follows. Also, the email was created on html bases and this gives to the sender the opportunity to put the name, the characteristics and anything else which will make the product attractive. In the main body of the email there is the video. And on the bottom there is always a form which the client can full in if he/she wants to make an order of the product.

The advantages of the projection through multimedia email are the follow:

- A useful tool for the user

- The forms of communication can give the opportunity to the client to order the product

- The cost is localized in the services of the public relations consultants who decide the content of these emails and also to decide who the future clients are.

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With the rise of social media nowadays dating can be done by your laptop. For example you can use face book in order to meet people you like and people to have a date. This happens because people don’t have time due to working hours to go out and meet people and because they use social media for their job it’s easier for them to meet people, chat with them and know the better. An example of the online dating happened with a famous football player as Scott Hesketh wrote in the Daily Star, on Sunday 29th of March. ‘FOOTIE superstar Cristiano Ronaldo scores with women over the internet by sending them pictures of his rippling muscles. The Manchester United ace has been man-marking a bevy of beauties by chatting on MSN and Face book.

He gets girls onside by sending them saucy snaps of his six packs, and then invites them to witness his ball skills in raunchy hot tub romps at his £4million Cheshire home. One of his cyber sizzlers revealed: “Ronaldo loves chatting to girls over the net. After training he goes home, gets his laptop out and logs on to MSN. “He’s always inviting me to his house for hot tub parties with him and his mates and I know he does the same with other girls. “He randomly sends pics of him and his family or him with no top on posing in his house. He loves himself to bits. “The guy is hot property in football and I can tell you he’s permanently on heat when it comes to women.” We obtained these exclusive pics from some of Ronaldo’s female fans. One shows the 24-year-old hot shot, who calls himself Cris when online, posing in his mansion with his top off. Another sees Ronaldo hugging his aunt and there is a holiday snap of the star relaxing on a speedboat with his cousin Nuno and his sister’s boyfriend Edgar. Our source said: “He just keeps sending them during conversations. You don’t have to ask, he just sends a load of random photos. “He’s a nice fella and is clearly fit but he’s very vain – and he’s got a one-track mind.” The World Player of the Year loves to hit the net both on and off the pitch. When Ron, who lives at the five-bedroom mansion in posh Alderley Edge with Nuno and his waiter, gets frisky he logs on to his laptop. One online pal said: “He used to use Face book. Cristiano Aviero was the name he used but had to keep changing it as he was getting flooded with messages. “Now he mainly uses MSN. He just comes on, says, ‘Hello it’s Cris, how are you?’ and chats about random stuff like his clothing range or his family.

“He doesn’t talk that much about footie; I think he’s more interested in chatting up girls to be honest. “I know for a fact I’m not the only one he talks to – there’s a few of my mates too. And I’m pretty sure there are hundreds of other women in his online social network. “He’s asked me out quite a few times, keeps telling me he’ll pick me up and go and watch a film in his cinema.” Ronaldo’s list of flames includes Holly oaks babe Gemma Atkinson, 24, and Portuguese stunner Nereida Gallardo, 26.

For the above example we can see that online dating is an easy way to meet people even you are Ronaldo or an ordinary person. Also you can chat with people just for friendship or gossip! Social media again offer their services to people in order to use them the way they like!

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Elections to the European Parliament will be held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. Seven hundred and thirty six members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will be elected by proportional representation to represent some 500,000,000 Europeans, making these the biggest trans-national elections in history.

Approximately three quarters of the MEPs will be elected on Sunday 7 June, but because of traditional polling days varying from country to country according to local custom, the other quarter will be elected in the three preceding days: in the United Kingdom, for instance, voting will take place on 4 June, a Thursday.

The political parties of European countries are in alert in order to promote their candidates through media. Their main purpose is to convince young people to vote in order to increase the number of the votes and a way to do that is through social media. For example in my country, Cyprus, PR consultants of each party created a group in face book for every candidate by presenting their achievements and work for the community, and also they created blogs where people can say their opinion about the candidates. How effective can that be or how reliable? And what else is happening in the other countries? I believe probably the same and maybe they use more tools of social media. The following video will give the opinion of people about the elections and guess! EU Parliament spends 15 million euro on its own election campaigns.

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Public Relations have a lot of capabilities which are arise from the contemporary forms of social media. These forms can be considered as the new tool of communication.

The companies are creating accounts in social media and also advertising their products or services through blogs by abolishing their professional websites which they need professional skills in order to be build.

The question here is that if an excellent user of social media who has no knowledge with marketing or public relations and he likes red colour can he promote a company through social media with just put red colour in the whole webpage?

This can be done with no costs, so why don’t we think it in a more serious way?

Then if companies which have a serious and responsible profile in their communication level should be careful with those people who don’t have the relevant knowledge of using the social media proactively for their employers.

Otherwise the results will be catastrophical.

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