1. Week 1: Orientation/Introduction to Online Public Relations.
    1. Objective: You will learn to use online media for internal and external public relations activities and online tools to implement traditional and online public relations programs.
      1. This course is hands-on. We discuss theory, but success on the Web is based mostly on one’s ability to do.
      2. There are many online media -- commercial and public services. Commercial equals AOL, CompuServe, etc. This course focuses on the public medium -- the Internet, but commercial services are important and must not be neglected in online public relations programs.
      3. Internal and external public relations activities:
        1. Internal: The Intranet is one of the most important communication tools inside the company today. It informs and builds relationships with internal publics from lowest to highest. In well-built intranets, information is tied to workflow and processes. The intranet is the backbone of the company’s activities.
        2. External: The Web page is a means of formatting and publishing many kinds of multimedia information. Multimedia information includes data, text, sound (voice, music), still and animated graphics and moving images, such as TV. In multimedia online news, archival information also is part of the mix. That is, a story will have links to previous stories and other information related to the topic.
        3. Internal-External: The Extranet is the Intranet opened to selective outsiders. It binds customers and vendors more closely to you.
      4. Online tools: Online tools include
        1. Search engines
        2. Web pages
        3. Usenet newsgroups
        4. Mail lists
        5. E-mail
        6. Streamed sound files
        7. Image files
        8. Streamed video files
        9. Databases
        10. Formatting - HTML
        11. Coding: Java, Active X
      5. Implement: By time you finish this course, you should know how to use and apply some of these tools.
      6. Traditional and online public relations programs
        1. Traditional: This means media that is usually associated with public relations such as press releases, media relations, promotions, events, etc.
        2. Online: Online uses most of the tools of traditional public relations but applies them in the online medium. Online has press releases, media relations, promotions, events, etc. They work differently.
  2. Introduction to principles of integrated communication.
    1. A manager's job is to get results that ensure the survival and success of a business. Online is one communication tool that a manager uses to get results.
      1. Online tools are part of corporate communication.
      2. Managers should know which communication tools to use at a given time and how to use them to get results.
      3. Few business disciplines focus on communication alone.
        1. Communication is a subset or assumed part of a management craft, such as marketing, accounting, organizational behavior, etc.
        2. Academics and consultants often assume that managers know how to communicate. This assumption is often wrong.
        3. Business specialties often focus on aspects of a manager's task but rarely on the whole job. Communication focuses on the whole job.
        4. Managers often learn some of the languages of business but fail to understand others. Hence, they are limited. Few understand online media today.
      4. Communication is a fundamental part of managerial craft and stands alongside other skills that a manager practices to ensure the survival and success of a business.
        1. One need not know communication theory to practice communication at a basic level, but to achieve great skill requires pragmatic understanding of communication concepts.
    2. Keys to integrated communication:
      1. Business is a subset of communication. One may communicate and never conduct an economic transaction, but one cannot conduct an economic transaction and not communication.
      2. Every living thing communicates in some way and is limited in how it can communicate by physical processes that it uses.
      3. Every human is limited in communication by his or her environment, as well as by the state of knowledge and of society before and during the time the person is alive.
      4. Every human is limited in communication by how he or she views other humans.
    3. Introduction to Online PR activities
      1. Online PR combines traditional PR and online skills to further client objectives. It is traditional PR extended to online.
        1. Online PR includes both public services, such as the Internet, and private commercial services, such as America Online.
      2. Online PR functions as a standalone or as part of a marketing communications effort.
      3. Online PR extends your presence to individuals online.
        1. Value-added because online allows interaction with individuals AND wide news/information distribution.
      4. Online PR benefits organizations looking for relationships with individual customers and other key influentials who directly affect an organization's survival and success.
      5. Online PR provides widest dissemination of company, product or service news because both public and commercial services have worldwide reach.
      6. There are at least 15 online PR services:
        1. Online audit
        2. Online content development
        3. Online promotion
        4. Online tracking/analysis of brands, competitors, industry
        5. Online public affairs
        6. Web site search engine positioning/site design
        7. Web site launch planning
        8. Partnership development with complementary Web sites
        9. Media relations
        10. Crisis management
        11. Investor relations
        12. Research
        13. Intranets/Extranets
        14. Events
        15. Public Relations process
      7. Assignment for next week:
        1. Visit www.online-pr.com.   Read explanations of online PR and Frequently Asked Questions.
      8. Class Exercise: Find the highly rated IR web sites linked to www.online-pr.com. Print out a home page and be prepared to critique it in class. Prepare a hand-drawn map of hyperlinks from the home page to site information and explain why it was done that way. Options:
        1. ABB Asea Brown Boveri
        2. Colgate-Palmolive Company
        3. Intel Corp
        4. Xerox Corp
        5. Bolt, Baranek & Newman
        6. Daimler-Benz
        7. Pacific Telesis
        8. Oracle
      9. Readings
        1. Chapters 1 and 2 from Publicity on the Internet
        2. Chapters 1,  2 and 3:  Public Relations on the Net
        3. Chapters 1 and 2 from Integrating Corporate Communications

Blue_ArrowF051.gif (140 bytes) Home Blue_Arrow4370.gif (140 bytes)Top of Page