The nature of PR has changed. This looks at what are the significant changes.

1. Online Communication Trends
David Phillips 2012

2. Our aim today
• Have lots of fun
• Use our imagination
• Think sideways
• Find people online
• Research audiences
• Reassure ourselves that all this work is
worthwhile

3. Communications rules for this lecture
• You MUST use Twitter
▫ Tell your friends where you are
▫ Comment of what you find out
▫ Talk about the lecture and lecturer
• You MUST use Facebook
▫ Because it’s there
▫ Because the photos you put on Facebook will help
you remember.
• Did you blog about the bits of this lecture you
find cool? Of course you did.

4. Lets take a sneak preview into
tomorrow

5. A simple task
• Identifying and targeting consumer
media; platforms, channels and tactics.
▫ The story of a handbag
 Your client makes top of the range
handbags
 Who would you target to place your stories
about their products?

6. Which media?
• Magazines?
• In-store promotion?
• Newspaper supplements?
• Celebrity?

7. But this is where the audience is

10. Niche
In conversation
Sharing
The new media E(mail) communication
Facebook users in Portugal: 4,581,040

11. Where do we find the constituents
• We look for common values
▫ One way is to use Google’s
Adwords.
▫ See what words (values) attach to
your brand

12. The values attaching
to ‘handbag’
organiser hooks
designer black
patent charms
navy
As if by magic, the
words found in Google
that do not include the
makers or the word
handbag still take us to
sites about handbags!

13. The words lead us to the constituents

14. Is Grunig out of date?
• The constituency does not have to be very
engaged but does have similar values
• The big issue is often remote from the values
common between the individual and audience
• There is no segmentation in messaging ‘everyone
can see everything’
• Publics of one and in this instant only is now
common.
• Public of millions is meaningless.

15. How to ask questions of your
constituents
Try Survey
Monkey
The
winner....
Google
Surveys
The samples get big

16. Big Data

17. How do PR’s mine Big Data?

18. But where do I go to join the
party?
• Many more
• More to come
• Many surprises

19. The nature of communication – the
internet of things
• Apps
• Widgets Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of
• Dresses Pussycat Dolls fame, stepped
• Glasses out on Thursday night wearing
• Video games a Twitter Dress, an electronic-
• Smart cards powered frock that displayed
• Location tracking real tweets in real time.
• Embedded communication

20. Putting the new constituents and new
platforms together – case study

21. It’s not what you have been taught.
It has changed.
• How do you segment constituencies (publics?,
stakeholders? Socio-economic groups?)
• Which media do segments use?
• What is the media?
• To what extent are platforms part of the message
and audience selection?
• To what extent are platforms and channels user
centric (does your mum use a wii?).
• Traditional paid-for has a role (e.g. paid search and
web advertising)

22. In the meantime all this stuff is
translating into economic activity
• The research
Is it for Portugal?

23. When the rest of the economy is....
er...
• UK is a leader. Where it goes, so too will the rest of Europe.
• Total U.K. Internet traffic is expected to increase by an
average of 37 percent every year between 2010 and 2015.
• The U.K. Internet ecosystem is worth £82 billion a year
• Every £1 spent on Internet connectivity—mobile and fixed
broadband networks—currently supports £5 in wider revenue
for the U.K. ecosystem.
• Of the total £82 billion U.K. Internet economy, £37 billion is
in the Internet value chain and £45 billion in the e-commerce
it supports. The value chain is 2.6 percent of the country's
GDP, while e-commerce is a further 3.1 percent.
• 2011 data showed that Portugal is catching up very fast.

24. Meanwhile Portugal BOOOOMs!
• Internet retailing continued to grow in 2011, reaching €401
million.
• The amount spent per person on internet purchases increased by
23%,
• Internet retailing widened its consumer base
• The level of confidentiality and security for online payment remained
an important concern amongst Portuguese consumers.
• However, internet retailing in Portugal is experiencing
dynamic development, with an increasing number of Portuguese
shopping online on a regular basis.
• The main factors which attract consumers to this channel are
convenience of shopping and competitive prices.
• Six million consumers online (55.2% of population)
• The number of internet users in Portugal is rising, which is
also helping to boost sales.

25. What we have learned
• The way we consume information is changing
• There are now many more media outlets and many are online
• The audience is not in nice segments anymore
• People cluster round values – which we can find using Google tools
(among others)
• We can find where consumers and opinion formers are by
researching values.
• Opinion and Consumer research is now possible and inexpensive
online.
• This is all possible because we can interrogate (Big Data)
• The internet is escaping the PC and we now have the beginnings of
the ‘Internet of Things’.
• All this activity is making the internet bigger and more important
• It is driving our economies.
• Portugal is Boooooming online!

26. Our aim today
• Have lots of fun
• Use our imagination
• Think sideways
• Find people online
• Research audiences
• Reassure ourselves that all this work is
worthwhile
• Yup... We did all that!