Internet Presence Marketing is the New P.R.

Last week, I had the pleasure of having lunch with a very talented and accomplished public relations expert who was telling me about her years of work for Fortune 500 firms and agency experience at Ogilvy & Mather, one of the top advertising agencies in New York. Having myself started at a small ad agency, I can tell you that I was impressed by her resume and experience. Public relations firms have always played a big role in the success of companies both large and small, and I’ve hired several throughout my career.

While listening intently to the stories she shared, I suddenly had an epiphany: everything we once called “public relations” (or “PR”) is today known as “internet presence marketing”. Now to be honest, I must confess that I hadn’t actually thought of this when I named my business Internet Presence LLC, nor when I launched our website, www.internet-presence-marketing.com. But it’s true — everything that we once hired a traditional public relations firm to handle for our businesses offline is now being done online. And it’s called Internet presence marketing.

Internet presence marketing blends what traditional PR firms used to do with what the Internet now makes possible. Branding, image — indeed the “face” of our business — used to be defined by print ads and television advertising. Today it’s made up of a website, our YouTube channel, our email marketing campaigns, and more. Social interaction with customers and clients — what used to be managed through coupons, clippings, and direct mail — is today made possible in real time via dozens of social media platforms.

The Internet has revolutionized the discipline of traditional public relations. Now, in addition to making communication instantaneous between our businesses and our customers and clients, the dialog is two-way: it’s now possible to monitor in real time what our customers and clients are saying. Public relations hasn’t gone away; it’s simply evolved into something far more powerful than ever before.