PR learning online
Online is the present and future of PR. It
is not the end of PR as we know it. It is a
media tool with features that PR
practitioners should exploit.
Learning Online Crafts
James L. Horton
Online is the present and future of PR. It understanding. By then, other
is not the end of PR as we know it. It is a communications fields are using
media tool with features that PR communications technology in new
practitioners should exploit. and creative ways. For example,
databases are at the heart of list
And there is the challenge. Because management, and PR practitioners
online is a tool, one must learn to use it. make lists, especially media lists.
And that is a challenge many PR However, few practitioners know how
practitioners avoid. There are reasons or why databases work. They buy
why: lists from vendors like MediaMap,
which builds and runs the database.
Most PR practitioners fear technology.
Old and young practitioners have time
PR practitioners can’t get past “so
and again demonstrated deep-seated what?” The “so-what” objection goes
reluctance to learn technology well. something like this, “So what? We
They use the Internet, e-mail and Web don’t need to know anything about
pages. But, they memorize rules: online. We just use it.” The problem
They don’t understand reasons for is that one cannot use technology
doing things. They click a button, and creatively without understanding its
if it doesn’t work, they call “Hank” who parameters. For example, if all you
knows about this stuff. know about a hammer is that it drives
nails, you don’t know that a hammer
PR practitioners fear technology pulls nails; that a hammer is crucial in
beyond writing and presentation tools. aligning wood to be nailed; that a
They use a word processor more or hammer is a quick lever when
less well, and they use PowerPoint. boosting things into place; that a
Few use an electronic spreadsheet hammer is perfect for making dimples
like Excel or know what to do with it. in sheetrock before compounding it to
Fewer use a relational database like cover nail heads; that a hammer has
Access or have any idea of how to many other uses besides driving nails.
apply it. What is disturbing is how Online is a complex and growing suite
little most PR practitioners know about of tools. To use online well, one
word processors. needs to learn its techniques and to
study new applications as they arise.
Because PR practitioners fear In other words, online is lifelong
technology, they do not think learning.
technologically. They follow and do
not lead in developing technology for
client service. But the outcome of Theory and Craft
following is that client service in PR
suffers until technology becomes an Online PR is craft, not theory. PR theory
integral part of a practitioner’s remains the same whether one uses
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online, newsprint, TV, radio, events or Adherents to the Content school believe
another technique. Craft means one can content matters, and flash doesn’t
do something, or not. PR practitioners because:
can write well or not, can pitch media
successfully or not, can set up events or
Most online users want information
not, can handle crises or not and know quickly. They don’t want to wade
how to use online – or not. PR through cutesy, animated pages to get
practitioners are hired to do and not to data, and they can’t stand ads,
theorize about doing. This does not especially those that hover over copy
mean that practitioners disdain theory – you are trying read or distract you by
far from it. Theory underlies everything floating around the screen to music.
practitioners do, but paychecks come
from getting things done.
The highest use sites are content sites
– including search engines, e-
Doing online is useful: Reading about commerce, news and corporate web
online is useless. That’s an sites. Google, the search engine, has
overstatement, but not by much. Few a presentation so simple that one
read manuals, no matter how well written might call it simplistic. Google hides
or indexed. This is true for all levels of machinery to help users, and users
society and all ages, and it is true for prefer it that way.
online. In 20 years of teaching
technology formally and informally, I have
Personal experience supports content.
concluded that PR practitioners are Surf the Web and see for yourself.
pragmatic. They learn techniques as Simple and usable presentation that
required. They don’t read about delivers content intuitively and quickly
techniques. They forget formal training is king while flashy presentation is
when they leave a classroom, and they annoying.
are not given to self-learning.
The Flash school disagrees with the
That is why learning online is doing content school – sometimes vehemently.
online. One can discuss online theory or To the Flash school, excitement matters
one can do. Doing is better. One can because:
talk about the segments of an e-mail
message or one can write e-mail. Writing
When on the web, do as the web
is better. One can discuss what is in a allows. The Web allows
Web page or build a Web page. Building multimedia interactivity, so exploit
a Web page is better. multimedia interactivity. If it can be
done, do it.
Content and Flash
Some users want excitement, so
give it to them. Sites can be an
And what is it that one builds? In fact, end to themselves and not just a
what is online? There are two answers. means of conveying information.
Online is content OR online is flash, Plenty of sites are for games, for
pizzazz or whatever you wish to call it. animation and entertainment of all
kinds.
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Sometimes there isn’t much hyperlink that takes me to a page with
content to put on a site. If one is more -- if I choose to go there. Tell me
promoting inconsequential what I need to know quickly. E-mail
products, services and ideas, use content is an inverted pyramid. Reporters
eye candy to make the point. It and clients want news in a short two or
can carry the day when reasonable three sentences with a place to go to get
persuasion cannot. more, if they choose to go there.
Flash is part of us. Much None of this will surprise anyone who has
American life depends on surface written news stories or laid out a
appearance – the latest movies, newspaper. Page design, news sections,
fashion, fads and other aspects of indices, jump lines, story formatting are
transient culture. all designed to deliver news without
confusing or losing readers. Newspapers
PR is split between content and flash. entice readers to read news while
There are those who hew to all-out delivering content efficiently and
promotional, press agentry techniques of intuitively. The same basic principles
marketing PR and those who hew to apply to the Content school’s approach to
Arthur Page principles of building long- online. As any editor will tell you, content
term trust with audiences. The two sides alone is not knowledge. Dumping facts
talk past each other without onto paper without organization and
understanding. connecting dots is noise. Dumping
information online is futile. Content on
PR practitioners should learn both paper and content online must be useful
content and flash while taking care not to to readers, or they leave. When one
mix them. But, if one does not have learns online, one learns about content
energy for both, practitioners should stick usability and not just writing.
with content. More people use the Web
for content than for entertainment. Usability includes everything from
navigation bars to hyperlinking strategy.
Usability includes animation that
Content Delivery illustrates content. For example, rather
than writing about how a machine works,
Adherents to the Content school show how it works. Usability includes
subordinate design to information. page framing and layout. Where does
Design does not distract readers from the eye go first? How quickly can the
content. Design serves readers finding user spot what to do? How many clicks
content and helps explains content. does it take the user to get to content?
Principles of usability are known but
Content generation relies on tested evolving as online matures. There are at
communications principles. For example, least 20 online style guides and none are
web writing is really an inverted pyramid the last word in Web design and
with hyperlinking. If you know how to information presentation.
write a press release with news in the
lead, you know how to write for online. One can grasp usability before building a
An online user wants you to get to the web site, but no one learns usability
point. If there is more, give me a except by coding. One exercise I had
online students perform when I was
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teaching was to critique Web sites for that one must depend on technologists.
usability. This required teams of students Collaborative communication is not
to go through large sites, section by unusual. Newspaper and magazine
section and page by page to assess journalists depend on graphic designers,
whether the site delivered content photographers and printers. Film
efficiently and effectively. The next task producers depend on writers,
was to build their own web sites using cameramen, directors, editors, actors, set
insights they gained. They mastered designers, stunt men and more. Online
usability when they could do what they depends on writers, designers,
grasped intellectually. technologists, musicians and others. The
key to collaboration is familiarity with the
Another time-tested principle that applies process and knowledge of the language.
to online is freshness. Content is Collaborative technologists and artists
continuous online. Old content goes develop verbal shorthand to work
stale: New content attracts readers. together. PR practitioners should know
Online is not a book or brochure. It is a what each person does online and be
television or radio that demands new able to converse intelligently with the
information daily. Online editors feed a individual.
machine just like broadcast news editors
do. Online is a worldwide medium that One does this by going to the technicians
operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a who often discount practitioners until they
year. It is not a place to build pretty show that they understand what
presentations that won’t change for technicians do. One learns quickly that
months at a time. There is a term for this online is negotiation. Each technical
error – “brochureware.” Many companies department has its say and needs. One
continue to err by thinking about online as must learn to meld divergent interests into
“brochureware.” It isn’t and never was. a whole. This is especially true in large
organizations where integrating e-mail
Online is interactive. One talks to users and Web site communications is an
and users talk back one at a time. Letters onerous task that involves more than
to the editor in a newspaper are a technical skill. The politics of every
simulacrum of what online can do in department, division and operating unit
relating to readers. PR practitioners get thrown into the mix and achieving
should give users a chance to talk back coordination is difficult.
and to express preference. Online is
about choice, the reader’s choice, not There is one traditional communications
your choice. Users control the Who, concept that practitioners must forget
What, Where, When, Why and How much when learning online. This is the idea of
of learning. One can make content mass media. Online is an individual
delivery enticing, but no one can force- medium. Even though web-based
feed the user. With one click, the user is advertising counts on attracting eyeballs,
gone. It is easier to leave a Web site the fact is that each pair of eyeballs
than to throw away a newspaper. chooses individually to use a Web site, or
not. There are millions of Web sites and
Yet another time-tested principle that millions of choices. A monopoly of three
applies to online is the nature of its TV networks and a newspaper is
production. Online is collaborative. irrelevant. Practitioners trained in
There are so many elements to online
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concepts and crafts of mass media have of Illinois in Urbana. The Web roared into
a difficult re-education. existence and has never stopped
growing. Today it is billions of pages and
Online is a direct medium. The goal is to no one, not even Google, knows how
tailor a web page, e-mail or other large it is. Online has moved from a toy
communication exactly to the needs of a to a tool.
user. The goal is not to develop a site
that is all things to all users. Each user Online is the first worldwide,
should be able to access a site quickly in individualized medium, and it is a force
the way that he or she wants to use it. that has seized the attention of
This means that unlike newspapers, newspaper publishers, television and
magazines, newsletters, television cable network executives, radio station
programs or radio shows, online structure owners, corporate CEOs, not-for-profits
is adaptive. Every Web site has structure administrators and millions of individuals.
but the structure allows a user to find PR practitioners cannot ignore online.
intuitively information that he or she is They should integrate online into
looking for and exploit information in the everything they do. But to do so, they
way that he or she wishes to do. For must commit themselves to learning
example, online allows one to build a online crafts.
personal web page. It allows one to
customize what he or she wishes to see. ###
It is about choice – the reader’s choice,
not the practitioners choice.
Jim Horton, founder of www.online-
This is not easy to understand or to pr.com, writes frequently about online.
implement. Content generation and
presentation are craft skills. Just as one
learns to write press releases by writing
them, one learns how to write and
present online content by writing it and
formatting it online where others judge it.
Practitioners can get ideas by looking at
others’ solutions but they learn by
imitating them. Surfing is useful, but
surfing is not enough. One understands
what to do online by experimenting
online, by keeping good solutions and
throwing out bad ones.
The Internet was invented in 1969 in the
engineering department of UCLA. Tim
Berners-Lee wrote the rules for the World
Wide Web in 1991 at CERN, the huge
physics accelerator in Europe. Lee’s
invention took off when Marc Andreessen
led the development of the Mosaic
browser in 1993 at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications, University
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