The Public 2.0

This is 2009. Everyone whose daily life is spent 20% of the time surfing, updating their profiles, and watching videos online probably knows what web 2.0 means. The generation came suddenly and pervasively, same as how technologies came upon Web 2.0. The speed and convergence by which people now interact also forced companies to act out proactively. Big companies now have high value for the people online, primarilly because major controversies, rumors, praises, opinions, and other organizational reaction come from this group. The people online constitute what I call public 2.0. Because of this, it is inevitable that PR practitioners also go to the web, but their real-life practice of PR is not anymore working efficiently for their organizations. They must adapt as fast as the bandwidth upgrades once to thwice a year (Philippines’ excempted from this of course).

These are some of the new rules of PR for all of us. I picked the top five from the bounty that our lecturer gave us.

You are what you publish. PR practitioners are not representatives, but individual advocates of their organizations. Their positions are now covered with usernames that make them only a part of the web, not superior corporate citizens.

Participation, not propaganda. Public 2.0 is a very participative and reactive demographic. PR practioners could get to know more about them by actually immersing themselves into that public. Call it phenomonologcial.

Lines between PR and marketing is now blurred. This raises the challenge for PR practitioners because not only must they be able to communicate effectively with the public to raise reputation and image, but also know how to market their product/service. They must know that people only react online when they are interested with something that they’re seeing; therefore, there must come some marketing strategy to seal the deal.

Spam is coutnerproductive. Spams are like the billboards in Guadalupe. They’re nice to see, but you’d rather see more of the beautiful river down the bridge during sunset than Willie Revillame, with three girls, proclaiming his chick-trapping man-scent. PR practitioners should know that Public 2.0 is further divided into subcultures, and they mus be able to target those subcultures that they deem important for the organization.

Public 2.0 looks for benefits, critically. As technology becomes better, so are people’s rationalizing powers getting sharper. Public 2.0 doesn’t get fooled that easily nowadays, and that is a great thing. PR professionals, in turn, must be able to assert the personal benefits and social relevance of what product/service they are pitching over the net.

These days, it’s hard for people with online capabilities not go online. Not only must organizations observe this phenomenon, but also react to it. Same with organizations, PR practitioners should realize the great potential that web 2.0 offers for businesses and society.