The Pew Internet & American Life Project just published their Generations Online report for 2009 and it's worth a read (hat tip to Shabbir Safdar @ Virilion Inc. for publishing a link to the report in his latest newsletter)
The report challenges the idea that young people represent the bulk of users online. According to their research, each generation is as active online as any other - they're just using the internet for different things. Teens and Generation Y find entertainment and social networks online. Older generations use the internet as a tool for research, shopping and banking. Both the younger and older generations go online to do research.
Many of my clients are hesitant to expand their online outreach strategy much beyond a basic website and a monthly email newsletter (indeed, sometimes it's a challenge just to execute those two effectively). In today's internet, however, these two are clearly not enough. SEO, social media, interactive tools, and online word of mouth, are need to be critical components of any online strategy.
This research reinforces that no matter who your current audience is, and no matter which new audiences you are trying to reach, your more likely to find them online than anywhere else.
Which begs the question, what are you doing - right now - to create and execute a comprehensive online presence for your organization?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Credit where credit is due
The funny thing about using social media for PR, is that we sometimes end up caught between two opposing paradigms.
Generally speaking, writers/reporters/editors would prefer if PR were an invisible part of the process. At the end of the day, we're all working to ensure that the final written product appears to be the journalist's, rather than the publicist's, creation.
Social media, on the other hand, works in the opposite way. The network itself finds a way to encourage views of content it deems to be useful, relevant or interesting - for whatever reason. Information - oftentimes supplied by a publicist - gets retweeted, dugg, shared on facebook and myspace, and otherwise moved up the chain of online relevance. The content of the article is what matters - not necessarily the source.
Which is exactly why using social media for PR purposes is so refreshing. Anyone - a non-profit organization, a consumer products company, or a publicity firm - can circulate information online. The only requirements are that:
Generally speaking, writers/reporters/editors would prefer if PR were an invisible part of the process. At the end of the day, we're all working to ensure that the final written product appears to be the journalist's, rather than the publicist's, creation.
Social media, on the other hand, works in the opposite way. The network itself finds a way to encourage views of content it deems to be useful, relevant or interesting - for whatever reason. Information - oftentimes supplied by a publicist - gets retweeted, dugg, shared on facebook and myspace, and otherwise moved up the chain of online relevance. The content of the article is what matters - not necessarily the source.
Which is exactly why using social media for PR purposes is so refreshing. Anyone - a non-profit organization, a consumer products company, or a publicity firm - can circulate information online. The only requirements are that:
- The content matters to your audience
- The content is complete, relevant and timely
- The content is easy to navigate and share
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