PR PEOPLE NEED TO GET ONLINE

According to B&T, Australia's highest circulating advertising, media and marketing magazine, a significant number of public relations professionals lack new media skills.

Only 9% of PR practitioners write a blog, post to blogs or write the copy for someone else's blog and 40% of those working in the industry admit to lacking new media knowledge.

A much larger proportion use the Internet to track mentions of their clients with 77% of practitioners using online websites for monitoring and reading news every weekday. However, it is imperative that PR people become much more involved in the use of new media (websites, blogs, wiki's, podcasts, vodcasts and social networking) rather than simply filling the role of passive spectator.

Individuals of all ages, not just those residing in the Generation C bracket, rely on the Internet for everything from shopping to socialising to finding out the latest trends and we need to be interacting with them. We also need to convince our clients that these audiences are worth talking to (a daunting task as 55% of CEOs don't believe new media is relevant to their stakeholders!)

Many other industries are way ahead of us when it comes to using new media. Isn't it about time we pulled our socks up and joined them?

TAKE COVER....IT'S A BLOG BLOODBATH

This is a shining example of a blog gone bad. Can anyone explain why the Guardian allowed a young guy, with nothing more to talk about than what appears to be your average gap year, to have his own blog on their site?

You can see the backlash to this kind of blogging underneath poor Max's first post

Let us learn from this blogging disaster. Firstly, do not blog unless you have something interesting to say (especially if you are writing for a large corporation or say....a very prominent newspaper). People do not want to read about your pets, family or gap year.

Also, strive to be transparent as possible. PR professionals, be honest about who you are. Budding young reporters, if you are blogging for a newspaper, and are related to one of the senior writers, let your readers know. The truth has a curious way of coming out in the end and blog readers will be far less scathing if you are open about your identity from the start.

If you are not sure about blogging content and etiquette then talk to somebody who can advise you. The Internet has a very long memory...if you post a blog and it goes down badly with your audiences then your online reputation will remain tarnished for a very long time.