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Ezeah Gregory Herbert DIGITAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: A NEW STRATEGY IN CORPORATE MANAGEMENT BY EZEAH, GREGORY HERBERT Abstract The highly competitive nature in today’s business environment has made it imperative for multi-national corporations to device new and faster means of improving its corporate ima...

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Ezeah Gregory Herbert

DIGITAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: A NEW STRATEGY IN CORPORATE MANAGEMENT BY EZEAH, GREGORY HERBERT Abstract The highly competitive nature in today’s business environment has made it imperative for multi-national corporations to device new and faster means of improving its corporate image. Digital public relations or e-PR is the latest concept in corporate management. It is the practice of public relations through the new information communication technologies (ICTs). Because of the latest advancement in technologies, public relations can be practiced through the use of computer, internet, world wide web, global system for mobile telecommunications and other infotech systems. This study examines the place of digital public relations as a new strategy in corporate management. The study explores how companies, organizations, multinational corporations institutions and individuals could utilize digital public relations to enhance their image and reputation among its publics and other stakeholders. The study notes that digital public relations is highly creative, strategic, fast, result-oriented and yet cheap. It is cheap because anybody can access information of any company in the internet without paying a kobo (Nigerian money). Introduction Digital public relations or e-PR or rather dot.com public relations is the latest concept in corporate reputation management. It is the practice of public relations through the new information communication technologies (ICTs). It is an innovative concept that is computer mediated. It is public relations practice in the cyber-space. It is highly creative, strategic, fast, result-oriented and yet cheap. Many multi-national corporations, banks, companies, parastatals, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, institutions, etc. have websites and web-pages in the internet. They post their profiles and other data concerning the activities of their organizations in the website. Even news media organizations such as newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations have their websites in the internet. Private individuals and organizations also have webpages in the net. Information concerning the organization are made available and could be accessed in the internet by anybody. Today, organizations and clients are making greater demands on public relations professionals who help to post or create favourable and positive Nsukka Journal of the Humanities No.15, 2005 135

Digital Public Relations: A New Strategy in Corporate Mangement

information about the organization in the internet. They are demanding more creativity, more innovations, more speed, and more efficiency in service delivery. Besides, the business environment has become very competitive, such that any public relations practitioner who cannot practice digital public relations in this era of information communication technologies would be out of job. To understand the concept of digital public relations, it is important to know at least a little about computer/computer appreciation and public relations management. This is because digital public relations is computer-mediated. To practice it, one does not need to be a computer expert, but have a basic knowledge of what computer is, its components, and its elementary operations. You must be able to know how to use computer to store information, retrieve information and print out document. Joseph Turow (1999:295) notes that the application of computer codes in mass media materials opens the door to the possibility that audience members can actually manipulate the materials according to their interests. Connected to the producers via a telephone line, audience members would even respond to the producers of the programme via the computer. The producers in turn, could then send out a new message that would take the response into consideration. This sort of manipulation and responses, much easier in digital than analog technology, is what computer experts mean when they speak of interactivity. We are leaving the analog age, they point out, and entering the age of digital interactive media. Much activity in cyberspace, that is, on-line packaging services and the internet are still for mediated interpersonal communication – individuals interacting one-on-one with other individuals through print, voice and video. But a large and growing portion of the on-line world involve commercial attempts to reach out to various audiences. As earlier stated, companies, organizations and institutions have sprang up to create sites on the web or the commercial on-line networks to determine who is coming to them, and even to encourage advertising and public relations on them. The on-line world, in short, has become a new mass medium. Why should anyone want a site on the web? There are many reasons. When it comes to individuals, some people may simply do it because they can afford. Others may want to share hobbies or photos or ideas about the world with anyone who will be interested. Companies tend to have four reasons for creating web sites. i) Image making ii) Selling products iii) Supporting the sale of products, and Nsukka Journal of the Humanities No.15, 2005

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iv)

Selling advertising for someone else’s products A site can fit some or all these aims. Image making means creating a site to reflect the personality of the product or services that is the subject of the site. Through the web, corporations, companies, institutions and individuals can afford to reach an audience that would be impossible to reach with another medium. For example, the Ford Motor Companies web site provides consumers with information about vehicles it sells, along with information about Ford dealers around the world. Nearer home, Shell Petroleum Development Corporation also has a web site where all information about its activities and oil explorations in Nigeria could be accessed. Ditto for all other multi-national corporations in Nigeria. Some individuals, Universities, NGO’s, media organizations etc. now maintain sites on the web where their profiles are posted and updated. Corporate Communications Management Corporate communications management involves the creation and presentation of a company’s overall image to its employees and the publics at large. Employees believe that workers who share an understanding of company goals and activities will be both more satisfied with their jobs and more productive. Executives also want members of the public to believe that the company is a good citizen, since that image might encourage purchases and help the firm get favourable treatment from local, state and federal governments. In many companies, employee relations tasks are carried out by a PR firm in conformation with human resources departments. They provide their employees with company handbooks, newsletters, and magazines. Experts in this area emphasize that all forms of interaction between a firm’s leadership and its rank and file, even e-mail addresses, are vehicle for maintaining good morale and sense of purpose. Some organizations with widely dispersed visions even produce news programme is just for employees and members of the public that are sent via satellite to offices around the world or web sites for the public to access. The other side of corporate communications involves managements concerns with images held by consumers. Even the largest firms often hire an outside public relations firm to help with their public image. Let’s say that an automobile manufacturer wants to spread the notion that it is a technologically advanced, yet socially responsible company. PR consultants might suggest number of activities that taken together would add up to that image in people’s minds. The PR company might create a booklet that dealers can distribute about the auto manufacturer’s recent technological achievements. PR consultants

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might help the firm sponsor a solar car race on college campus. They might send the company’s engineers to speak to reporters from around the country about the firm’s cutting-edge work. Given a high enough budget, the company might even create a movie that explains scientific innovations relating to the car for science museums. Although carefully positioned as a science film and not an advert, the film can nevertheless associate the PR agency’s client with innovations by showing its name a few times during the film as well as in the sponsorship credits. However, in this era of information communication technologies, the best bet is to post the firm’s achievements in the web site. Agba (2002:26) argues that the world today is ruled by an ever-changing information and communication technology revolution. Some people call it information age or computer age. This has reduced the wide world into one small community. This poses a great challenge to public relations which uses information and communication as its major tools in building bridges of friendship and cooperation among people and across the world frontiers. Nkwocha (2004:15) states that digital public relations is all about the use of new infotech technologies including wireless telephones, computers, internet, e-mail, etc. to do the work faster, cheaper and more efficiently, especially in the new world of competition, liberation, communications, privatization and globalization. Nkwocha (2003:43) also notes that information and communication technologies are now needed and can be applied in all aspects of public relations, corporate identity, product packaging, media relations, corporate social responsibility, crisis management, issue management and environment-al scanning. As we all know that a public relations is a profession that uses communication and interaction to create and sustain a favourable image and reputation among its strategic stakeholders called publics. In other words, public relations establishes cordial and fruitful relationships between an organization and its publics including employees, directors, customers, suppliers, bankers, creditors, shareholders, community leaders, media, top government officials and agencies (Nwosu, 1996:23). Public relations uses the tool of communication and the feedback mechanism. We can define public relations as simply being guided in our actions by the biblical injunction of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us. We can also describe public relations as doing and trying to get credit for the good we have done. It can further be described as looking good by building and sustaining good image or goodwill through good deeds that will win favourable considerations for us among members of the public (Nwosu & Idemili, 1992:5). Nsukka Journal of the Humanities No.15, 2005

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What is Digital Public Relations? The advent of the digital generation has fundamentally transformed the nature of public relations. This is the systematic and broad-based application of ICTs in all aspects of modern public relations practice that is computer compliant, computer driven or computer meditated (Nkwocha 2004:4). Digital public relations is public relations communication on the cyberspace, the internet and the world wide web (www). It also includes the use of the extranet for effective two-way communications with various publics who have access to the net. Nosike (2003:14) explains that digital public relations include the preparation of digital press kit (dpk) to extend the reach of the usual public relations press kit and ensure faster dissemination of corporate information to the media and ensure more effective media relations management. Nwosu (2000:18) asserts that the most effective public relations is e-public relations or electronic public relations which take place mainly on the internet and the world wide web (www) which is public relations on the net. It can, for instance quicken and widen the distribution of press releases and press invitations. In fact opportunities offered by digital public relations are enormous and varied. This is because the electronic information communication technology driven or digital meditated knowledge, activities and strategies have become very imperative for companies and organizations in today’s competitive and globalized socioeconomic development. The contemporary public relations manager or public relations executive any where in the world, including Nigeria, must, therefore, master the principles and applications of digital public relations, if he or she hopes to remain relevant and useful to his or her organization. And the first thing to do is to ensure that he or she is computer literate because digital public relations is computer based. A public relations practitioner should understand the different between the analog and digital computer. An analog computer, according to Baron (2004: 397) works with analog signals or electronic pulse while the digital system takes the information and represents it as a series of changes or bits, that are represented in codes by zero’s and one’s (“Os” and “1s”) which processes data faster and makes it more meaningful. Digital is better than analog especially for data processing and communication. With this technology, several information signals could be transmitted over a single channel and reduction in the equipment improvement in speed and reliability obtained. The world today is ruled by an ever-changing information and communication technology revolution. This has further reduced the wide world into one small community. This poses a great challenge to public relations practitioners who uses

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information and communication as its major tools in building bridges of friendship and cooperation among people, organizations, institutions and across the globe. To cope with these challenges, public relations practitioners must be computer literate. They must have in their offices modern infotech facilities such as personal computer, laptops, digital telephones, digital cameras, photo and video cameras, fax machines, e-mail addresses, internet facilities etc. They should also know how to access and use e-mail, browse the internet, learn how to build websites and how to use digital cameras. How digital tools and audiences change public relations Considering that public relations is a communication discipline, one would think that the rapid proliferation of digital tools and rapid communication technologies would make public relations all that more powerful and effective (Jeffrey Geibel, 2006 ). In certain consumer-related areas this has certainly been the case, but for most technology-based businesses and multinational corporations, many find that they are not much better off than they were before the digital era. The acid test is how well your public relations programme supports your corporate image, sales and marketing, by building the critical sales front and of credibility and competitive distinction. The problem lies in the fact that many of the tried and true public relations tools were developed in a different era, and the use of today’s digital tools are mostly just an overlay – with a result that is roughly akin to trying to fit a jet engine to what had been a horse-drawn carriage . Unless the underlying structure is redesigned to take advantage of the new technology the wheels will come off. The same is true of your public relations programme if you don’t redesign it for digital application and digital audiences. This implies that in this effort you are dealing with someone who has the capabilities to be a public relations architect-turning your vision into executables-not just a hammer and saw trades person. Conventional public relations tools – the press releases, press conferences, press kits, facility visits, trade exhibitions – were designed at the turn of the century for a professional audience of journalists. In the digital era, much of the public relations programme will be addressing non-journalists audience, such as prospects, customers, stakeholders, human rights organizations, industry analysts, prospective employees etc. These audiences are not accustomed to receiving information in the conventional public relations format and will regard it as cumbersome and annoying. Your information has to be structured and formatted as a quick read if you want to get the message Nsukka Journal of the Humanities No.15, 2005

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across-otherwise it gets ignored. A quick review of what gets posted to most websites and the wire services (which are now accessed by internet search engines and desktop news – retrieval software) will show you that the conventional press release format is still widely followed – and the information requirements of a digital audience are not being met. Geibel (2006) maintains that just as the company works out an annual plan, so should your public relations programmes, and the plan should clearly delineate how the public relations programme will support your business objectives and promote the overall corporate reputation of your company .Mere product announcements are almost worthless – the real message is how dose your technology help your communicate to your digital audiences? This is the road map to digital public relations results. Conventional public relations programme will have the press kit materials developed once, and then seldom updated except for the new press relations. Unfortunately, press materials don’t have a long shelf life especially in hightech. Yesterday’s cooperate backgrounder is tomorrow’s quaint history lesson. You have to keep your press fresh and current. In other words, have a self– renewing story. The best self-renewing story is how your customers or clients are using your technology to solve business problems with each new sale, everything is updated–technology, market environment, economic consideration etc. In the conventional public relations approach, the press kit is sent to the targeted media, and the editorial staff is massaged in an attempt to get them to agree to assign a writer to get editorial coverage. In a digital public relations programme, this cumbersome process can be by-passed and the end result, feature story is self-generated by the company as the source material press release for the digital audiences. An additional benefit is that this is even more effective than a conventional release in dealing with the potential editorial feature–even if they reunite it in their style. With digital public relations programmes, you know who your discreet audiences are and you can set up discreet channels to reach them, which requires responsiveness to their information needs in terms of customization. Rather ironically, writers and editors often comment that although they are badgered daily by conventional public relations types, many times their calls are not returned in a timely manner when they are working on a deadline and need some special information or response. In responding to media or other inquiries, it is important to respond quickly while there is still fresh “mind share” so that you maintain interest and a dialogue. The loss of a digital can sometimes be a

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millennium. A quick response by telephone or e-mail often stuns the recipient, and gains some additional mindshare. This is digital public relations. Conclusion Digital p...