GREENWICH, Conn., May 2, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- It wasn't so long ago that PR was a pretty predictable business for most big companies. CFOs put out quarterly earnings releases. CEOs did media tours once or twice a year. Corporate communications teamed up with legal to plan for "crisis communications" events that might never happen. And then the PR team sat back and waited for the media calls to come in.
Then came Google, and everything changed. As Marketcom PR President Greg Miller observes, "For a discipline built on the assumption that you could not only manage but actually mold the perceptions of all of your key audiences, Google has upset the PR paradigm. It's much harder to control information. It's much harder to get out ahead of bad news. And every piece of public information about your company -- the good, the bad, the ugly -- lives on the Web more or less forever."
Don't believe it? Think of the impact of Google Alerts popping up all day on the electronic desktops of your customers, vendors, employees, analysts, shareholders, regulators and everyone else capable of typing your company's name. Then think of how much information is available about your company through a typical Google search. Then think of all of the comments about your company floating around on blogs and instantly searchable through Google or other search engines like Technorati. How much of that stuff is the result of something you or your company directly control? Not much.
What does it mean?
That there really is no such thing as a secret anymore. One high-powered private equity manager learned that when private information about an important alliance popped up in a simple Google search. Turned out that a young associate at the law firm of his firm's alliance partner popped the information into his website bio to make himself look more important.
That the media is now using Google as a primary news source -- and often the only one -- in its coverage about you and your company. That's what a well-known media investor discovered when a West Coast business journal printed a fable about his current business strategy based on what had happened in his career almost two decades ago without ever calling him. When asked why, the young reporter said, "Well, I found it all on Google." So it must be true.
That Google allows you to become the story in ways you could never anticipate. That's what a partner in a high-profile private equity firm found out when a former colleague reminisced in his blog about their shared time together as young, overworked associates at a major investment bank. The occasion -- running into each other at the marriage of a third former overworked associate at a major investment bank. Google found the entry -- with details and a picture -- only hours after it was posted. No harm done, but no control over the information, either.
Greg Miller's article, "Search Engine Technology Has Changed PR Forever -- So Why Is It Taking So Long for PR People to Adapt?" was published in the April 26 issue of The Bulldog Reporter. To view the article online, please go to http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/issues/1_1/dailydog_barks_bites/index.html.
About Marketcom PR
Marketcom PR designs and implements communications initiatives that combine classic media outreach tools with market-oriented thought leadership vehicles to help clients communicate better with their key audiences. For more information, visit www.marketcomPR.com.