David Phillips, co-author of Online Public Relations
The Focus is a chance for authors of media books to tell us a little more about their work and experience. This week it is the turn of experienced public relations, corporate affairs and research practitioner David Phillips. David co-wrote his most recent book, Online Public Relations with senior PR lecturer Philip Young.
A recent survey by BigMouthMedia found that many PR companies are still struggling with new media, what’s the most important advice you could give to PROs looking to utilise digital opportunities?
Of course, the first rule of internet PR is don’t jump, think!
As a private citizen, it hardly matters if you blunder a bit, as a professional communicator it’s an indictment. It is really easy to look pathetic and a complete amateur. The second rule is ‘don’t blag’. Many clients are pretty switched on even if their companies are not and being spotted for a fraud is much worse than owning up. The third rule is that (for all intents and purposes) everything you put on line is there to haunt you and your company or client forever.
Having been frightened by all that – smile. It’s not as bad as you think.
Practitioners can become niche experts in a very short time because there are no online PR experts armed with the answer to the world, universe and everything. Too much is happening too fast for anyone to have mastered it all. People like me who used the internet before the web was available for public use still struggle with the communications, economic and social interaction, consequences of technologies, technology integration and all that stuff. And it is stuff. It’s not magic so we do need to take time to understand it and the reasons for using, or not using it.
However, it’s not going away. If you have anything to do with relationship management or communication, the internet is big in your life already.
In a way it’s sad that some people in management struggle with further use and application of the internet. Having managed the FAX and email, used websites, text and email messages from a mobile, to imagine that a day spent setting up a Facebook account and fan page is difficult or adventurous is pretty lame. Most people do it without facing the wrath of any internet gods, hackers or even spammers. Go and set it up and see all those photos of the grandchildren and Aunt Mazy who is 77 and now living in Queensland. Then Skype her. She is probably already using it for free calls to your cousins anyway.
Of course, online public relations goes much further than adding sites to Delicious, profiles in Linkedin or photos in Flickr but there are helpful and authoritative authors published in a host of web sites and, thankfully, good old fashioned printed books.
I suppose the best place to start is with the institutions. Organisations like the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Public Relations Consultant’s Association; IABC and PRCA come immediately to mind. All these organisations have course, publications and available experts. Having done the professional thing, its time to follow knowledgeable people on their blogs, podcasts and webinars.
What’s your greatest pet peeve in the world of online PR?
I don’t really have pet peeves. It such a lot of fun. Of course time is an issue. There is never enough time to do even a fraction of what is possible – even essential. Don’t you just love sharing experiences with colleagues? Yesterday I was setting up an automated feed into Twitter with a workmate. She just clapped her hands with glee to see the tweets automatically appear. Now, she not only knows how to do it but when and why not to.
I do get a little peeved with people who say internet PR is free or low cost. Its mostly because they have never counted the hours it take to create five blog posts every week or a podcast on Sunday when the kids want to go swimming. Online work is a lifetime of commitment to listening, responding and taking the conversation and interactions forward. There are no real ‘campaigns’ in online PR, this is not advertising it is corporate and brand value development and goes on 24/7.
Where else are we likely to see your work?
I have so many interests. As part time digital consultant at Publicasity, I get to meet and help real clients and PR’s who are learning so much about online PR.
With my friend Girish in India, there is always interesting work on internet monitoring evaluation and analysis. We have a big new project coming out at the turn of the year which will move monitoring the digital space from social media to the impact of the whole ‘net on relationships, reputation and the ‘conversation’ – we have some fun tools up on the new Publicasity site that people can play with including a Latent Semantic Analysis toy for finding concepts embedded in web page texts – is it possible to reverse engineer Google?
I shall be working with some stunningly committed students at the School for Communication in Lisbon this Autumn and was thrilled to have a peer reviewed paper accepted in competition and co-presented at Bledcom (www.bledcom.com) this year. It was a major proof of concept research paper authored by Bruno Amaral, a brilliant young Masters student.
Of course, Twitter takes up some time (www.twitter.com/davidghphillips) and I blog at leverwealth.blogspot.com and am an occasional contributor to ‘For Immediate Release’, the ‘Hobson and Holtz’ twice weekly podcast
Online Public Relations by David Phillips & Philip Young
(www.forimmediaterelease.biz) which is a must for PR people even if they are not doing a lot of online work.
What’s your latest project?
Don’t be surprised. It’s another book after the amazing success of Online Public Relations this year which I co-authored with the University of Sunderland’s Philip Young who is a great contributor to online PR thinking and teaching.
This is very early days, but I think there is room for an online PR book aimed squarely at CEO’s. I find that the most senior managers in commerce are really aware of the influence of the internet on their businesses and want to know more about how and why.
What books are on your bedside table, magazines in your bag, or blogs on your screen?
I am re-reading (and scribbling frantically in the margins) Yochai Benkler’s book ‘The Wealth of Networks’, and Chis Anderson’s ‘Free’ and have a backlog of 11 other books which, for me, is pretty good.
There is no doubt that this is a time for reading outside the narrow confines of PR whether its online or not. The world is changing in so many ways because of the internet. As digital communication escapes from the PC, laptop and games machine into cell phones, more mobile devices and street furniture – even clothes, the next evolution will trully be a revolution and I want in.
Of course, living just north of Stonehenge with all that ancient culture embedded in the landscape, I do get a chance to think about these things walking my two Flatcoated retrievers along mysterious by-ways and can day-dream with long views and big skies from the tops of the hills.
Tags: David Phillips, interview with author David Phillips, Online Public relations, pr books
